On the impact of system resource constraints on wireless relaying channels

The paper considers the impact of various system resource constraints on the connectivity and performance of relaying channels. This consideration is motivated by recent findings indicating that the performance of wireless relaying networks can be increased through the application of distributed spatial diversity techniques (e.g., multi-user diversity, multihop diversity, cooperative diversity) that rely on the mesh connectivity between wireless terminals. Relevant system resource constraints are introduced, constraint combinations are analyzed, and resultant system connectivity models are derived and compared via simulation. The constraints considered are the available number of orthogonal relaying channels, the ability of relays to diversity-combine signals, the ability of the destination to diversity-combine signals, the ability of receivers to diversity-combine signals on multiple orthogonal channels, and the ability of transmitters to transmit signals on multiple orthogonal channels. The analysis of these system resource constraints is applicable to both amplified (non-regenerative, amplify-and-forward) relaying and decoded (regenerative, decode-and-forward) relaying.