Efficient, distributed, multiple-relay selection procedures for cooperative communications

In this paper we investigate various distributed, multiple-relay selection procedures for cooperative communications. Our investigation is an extension of a previous work [1][2] dealing with the method of distributed timers to select a single opportunistic relay. We have evaluated the performance of the proposed relay selection procedures through extensive simulations and found it reasonably good. We have also shown that the choice of the distortion function that transforms the reciprocal of the selection criterion into initial timer value has a fundamental impact on the performance of the relay selection procedure. Finally, we have provided an example, which demonstrates that, in certain cases, there is a trade-off between the gain of the cooperative communication scheme and the failure probability of the involved relay selection procedure.