Performance Analysis of Multi-User, Multi-Hop Cooperative Relay Networks over Nakagami-m Fading Channels

This letter analyzes the performance of multi-user diversity in multi-hop cooperative relay networks (MCRNs). In this letter, we derive a novel, simplified, asymptotic expression for the average symbol error rate (ASER) of multi-user MCRNs operating over Rayleigh or Nakagami-m fading channels (with arbitrary fading parameters). Both theoretical analysis and simulations explicitly reveal that for multi-user MCRNs operating over Rayleigh or Nakagami-m fading channels, a diversity order of 2L or 2mL can respectively be achieved (where L represents the number of users and m is the Nakagami fading parameter).