On the Second Order Statistics of the Multihop Rayleigh Fading Channel

Second order statistics provides a dynamic representation of a fading channel and plays an important role in the evaluation and design of the wireless communication systems. In this paper, we present a novel analytical framework for the evaluation of important second order statistical parameters, as the level crossing rate (LCR) and the average fade duration (AFD) of the amplify-and-forward multihop Rayleigh fading channel. More specifically, motivated by the fact that this channel is a cascaded one and can be modeled as the product of N fading amplitudes, we derive novel analytical expressions for the average LCR and the AFD of the product of N Rayleigh fading envelopes (or of the recently so-called N*Rayleigh channel). Furthermore, we derive simple and efficient closed-form approximations to the aforementioned parameters, using the multivariate Laplace approximation theorem. It is shown that our general results reduce to the corresponding ones of the specific dual-hop case, previously published. Numerical and computer simulation examples verify the accuracy of the presented mathematical analysis and show the tightness of the proposed approximations

Jointly Optimal Channel Pairing and Power Allocation for Multichannel Multihop Relaying

We study the problem of channel pairing and power allocation in a multichannel multihop relay network to enhance the end-to-end data rate. Both amplify-and-forward (AF) and decode-and-forward (DF) relaying strategies are considered. Given fixed power allocation to the channels, we show that channel pairing over multiple hops can be decomposed into independent pairing problems at each relay, and a sorted-SNR channel pairing strategy is sum-rate optimal, where each relay pairs its incoming and outgoing channels by their SNR order. For the joint optimization of channel pairing and power allocation under both total and individual power constraints, we show that the problem can be decoupled into two subproblems solved separately. This separation principle is established by observing the equivalence between sorting SNRs and sorting channel gains in the jointly optimal solution. It significantly reduces the computational complexity in finding the jointly optimal solution. It follows that the channel pairing problem in joint optimization can be again decomposed into independent pairing problems at each relay based on sorted channel gains. The solution for optimizing power allocation for DF relaying is also provided, as well as an asymptotically optimal solution for AF relaying. Numerical results are provided to demonstrate substantial performance gain of the jointly optimal solution over some suboptimal alternatives. It is also observed that more gain is obtained from optimal channel pairing than optimal power allocation through judiciously exploiting the variation among multiple channels. Impact of the variation of channel gain, the number of channels, and the number of hops on the performance gain is also studied through numerical examples.Comment: 15 pages. IEEE Transactions on Signal Processin

Level Crossing Rate and Average Fade Duration of the Multihop Rayleigh Fading Channel

We present a novel analytical framework for the evaluation of important second order statistical parameters, as the level crossing rate (LCR) and the average fade duration (AFD) of the amplify-and-forward multihop Rayleigh fading channel. More specifically, motivated by the fact that this channel is a cascaded one, which can be modelled as the product of N fading amplitudes, we derive novel analytical expressions for the average LCR and AFD of the product of N Rayleigh fading envelopes, or of the recently so-called N*Rayleigh channel. Furthermore, we derive simple and efficient closed-form approximations to the aforementioned parameters, using the multivariate Laplace approximation theorem. It is shown that our general results reduce to the specific dual-hop case, previously published. Numerical and computer simulation examples verify the accuracy of the presented mathematical analysis and show the tightness of the proposed approximations

Jointly Optimal Channel Pairing and Power Allocation for Multichannel Multihop Relaying

We study the problem of channel pairing and power allocation in a multichannel multihop relay network to enhance the end-to-end data rate. Both amplify-and-forward (AF) and decode-and-forward (DF) relaying strategies are considered. Given fixed power allocation to the channels, we show that channel pairing over multiple hops can be decomposed into independent pairing problems at each relay, and a sorted-SNR channel pairing strategy is sum-rate optimal, where each relay pairs its incoming and outgoing channels by their SNR order. For the joint optimization of channel pairing and power allocation under both total and individual power constraints, we show that the problem can be decoupled into two subproblems solved separately. This separation principle is established by observing the equivalence between sorting SNRs and sorting channel gains in the jointly optimal solution. It significantly reduces the computational complexity in finding the jointly optimal solution. It follows that the channel pairing problem in joint optimization can be again decomposed into independent pairing problems at each relay based on sorted channel gains. The solution for optimizing power allocation for DF relaying is also provided, as well as an asymptotically optimal solution for AF relaying. Numerical results are provided to demonstrate substantial performance gain of the jointly optimal solution over some suboptimal alternatives. It is also observed that more gain is obtained from optimal channel pairing than optimal power allocation through judiciously exploiting the variation among multiple channels. Impact of the variation of channel gain, the number of channels, and the number of hops on the performance gain is also studied through numerical examples.Comment: 15 pages. IEEE Transactions on Signal Processin