Hybrid Digital-Analog Relaying for Cooperative Transmission Over Slow Fading Channels

Hybrid digital-analog coding schemes have been proposed in source-channel coding to increase the robustness toward channel mismatch, in the absence of transmitter channel state information (CSIT). Recognizing that the same kind of robustness is needed at the relay in a three-node relay network, we propose several novel relaying protocols based on hybrid digital-analog transmission. We compare the performance of the new schemes with traditional digital-only (decode-and-forward or compress-and-forward) or analog-only (amplify-and-forward) relaying, as well as to performance bounds corresponding to genie-aided compress-and-forward relaying. Our new protocols achieve significant gains in terms of achievable expected rates, and they are able to close in on the performance bounds. In particular, we conclude that the best overall performance is obtained by an adaptive combination of decode-and-forward and hybrid digital-analog relaying.