Novel cooperative communication schemes for Space-Time-Frequency Coded MB-OFDM UWB

Cooperative communication has been intensively considered for general wireless and sensor networks. However, it has been almost untouched in space-time-frequency coded multi-band OFDM ultra-wideband (STFC MB-OFDM UWB) systems. This paper thus proposes two cross-layer designs for cooperative communication, namely simple cooperative communication scheme (SCCS) and advanced cooperative communication scheme (ACCS), in slow fading scenarios. In the former, nodes always cooperate with one another despite the possibly erroneous reception at the partner nodes, while in the latter, nodes cooperate only in the case of successful reception. Simulations show that these schemes may considerably improve the performance of STFC MB-OFDM UWB without any increase of transmission power.