In this paper, we propose a novel single-group multicasting relay beamforming
scheme. We assume a source that transmits common messages via multiple
amplify-and-forward relays to multiple destinations. To increase the number of
degrees of freedom in the beamforming design, the relays process two received
signals jointly and transmit the Alamouti space-time block code over two
different beams. Furthermore, in contrast to the existing relay multicasting
scheme of the literature, we take into account the direct links from the source
to the destinations. We aim to maximize the lowest received quality-of-service
by choosing the proper relay weights and the ideal distribution of the power
resources in the network. To solve the corresponding optimization problem, we
propose an iterative algorithm which solves sequences of convex approximations
of the original non-convex optimization problem. Simulation results demonstrate
significant performance improvements of the proposed methods as compared with
the existing relay multicasting scheme of the literature and an algorithm based
on the popular semidefinite relaxation technique
