A Unified Matching Framework for Multi-Flow Decode-and-Forward Cooperative Networks

Recent works have shown that cooperative diversity can be achieved by using relay selection (RS), distributed space-time coding (DSTC), and distributed beam-forming (DBF) in narrow-band decode-and-forward (DF) cooperative networks with one source-and-destination (s-d) pair. However, the joint resource allocation for broadband DF cooperative networks with multiple s-d flows has not received much attention yet. In this paper, a random hypergraph based unified matching framework is proposed, under which five feasible types of multi-flow DF cooperative networks will be considered. In each type, the maximum matching method will be applied to RS, DSTC, and DBF schemes so as to achieve the optimal channel allocation and relay selection with fairness assurance. By analyzing the properties of maximum matching, the outage probability of each s-d pair after resource allocation will be obtained. The results of diversity-multiplexing tradeoff will show that the proposed framework is capable of achieving the full frequency diversity and cooperative diversity for each s-d pair simultaneously, while the frequency multiplexing is equally shared. Based on the unified framework, the random rotation based parallel Hopcroft-Karp (R²PHK) algorithm will then be designed, which can work in each destination node independently, and shall enjoy a poly-logarithmic complexity O(log^2loN), where N is the number of channels and l_o is a constant.