Analysis and Modeling of Realistic Compound Channels in Transparent Relay Transmissions

Analytical approaches for the characterisation of the compound channels in transparent multihop relay transmissions over independent fading channels are considered in this paper. Compound channels with homogeneous links are considered first. Using Mellin transform technique, exact expressions are derived for the moments of cascaded Weibull distributions. Subsequently, two performance metrics, namely, coefficient of variation and amount of fade, are derived using the computed moments. These metrics quantify the possible variations in the channel gain and signal to noise ratio from their respective average values and can be used to characterise the achievable receiver performance. This approach is suitable for analysing more realistic compound channel models for scattering density variations of the environment, experienced in multihop relay transmissions. The performance metrics for such heterogeneous compound channels having distinct distribution in each hop are computed and compared with those having identical constituent component distributions. The moments and the coefficient of variation computed are then used to develop computationally efficient estimators for the distribution parameters and the optimal hop count. The metrics and estimators proposed are complemented with numerical and simulation results to demonstrate the impact of the accuracy of the approaches

Terrain dependant hop count selection for transparent relay transmissions

In this Letter, the selection of the best hop count for a particular topography, in the context of enhanced connectivity using multi-hop transparent relay communication is addressed. Based on the coefficient of variation and the terrain specific fading severity factor of the distribution, it is possible to estimate the optimal hop count that can provide the required performance at detector. Two distribution models, which can adequately characterise the terrain fading effects on empirical data are considered for performance comparison. The results are useful in selecting branches, with low variability and optimal hop count for connectivity, in multi-stream switched diversity combining systems