Spectral-efficient bidirectional decode-and-forward relaying for full-duplex communication

As a benefit of sophisticated interference cancellation techniques, full-duplex (FD) transceiver design may become feasible, even possibly on the aggressive time-scale of 5G wireless communication systems. Hence we further develop the recent bidirectional relaying (i.e. the two-way half-duplex relaying) aided cooperative network to its more radical counterpart, which entirely consists of FD entities for the sake of adapting to emerging FD communication scenarios. In more detail, the proposed bidirectional relaying aided FD network operates in a decode-and-forward (DF) style and exploits the advanced network coding (NC) concept. We analyse its achievable error-free data rate, where the effects of both the self-interference (SI) and of the geographic location of the relay node (RN) are evaluated. Furthermore, the potential variations of the networking scenario are also taken into account. Based on this theoretical analysis, the optimum rate allocation scheme maximizing the system’s errorfree data rate is found. Our results demonstrate that a significant spectral efficiency gain is achieved by the proposed syste