Successive Relaying Aided Near-Capacity Irregular Distributed Space-Time Coding

In this paper, an Irregular Distributed Space-Time (Ir-DST) coding scheme is studied in the context of a twin-relay aided network in which the successive relaying protocol is employed. A tight upperbound of the successive relaying aided network´s capacity is given. The distributed codes at the source and relays are jointly designed with the aid of Extrinsic Information Transfer (EXIT) charts for the sake of high-integrity operation at Signal-to-Noise Ratios (SNRs) close to the corresponding network´s capacity. Finally, it is shown that our proposed Ir-DST coding scheme is capable of near-capacity cooperative communications in the successive relaying aided network, which is an explicit benefit of our joint source-and-relay mode design.