Performance Analysis of OSTBC Transmission in Amplify-and-Forward Cooperative Relay Networks

A performance analysis is presented for amplify-and-forward (AF) cooperative relay networks employing transmit antenna diversity with orthogonal space-time block codes (OSTBCs), where multiple antennas are equipped at the transmitter. We develop a symbol-error-rate (SER) and outage performance analysis for OSTBC transmissions with and without cooperative diversity over flat Rayleigh fading channels. We first derive exact probability density functions (pdf´s) and cumulative distribution functions (cdf´s) for the system SNR without direct transmission with an arbitrary number of transmit antennas and then present the exact closed-form SER and outage probability expressions. Next, we derive the moment-generating function (MGF) for the overall system SNR with direct transmission and present the exact SER and outage probability with joint transmit antenna diversity and cooperative diversity. The theoretical analysis is validated by simulations, which indicate an exact match between them. The results also show how the transmit antenna diversity and the cooperative diversity affect the overall system performance.