DAC: Distributed Asynchronous Cooperation for Wireless Relay Networks

Cooperative relay is a communication paradigm that aims to realize the capacity of multi-antenna arrays in a distributed manner. However, the symbol-level synchronization requirement among distributed relays limits its use in practice. We propose to circumvent this barrier with a cross-layer protocol called Distributed Asynchronous Cooperation (DAC). With DAC, multiple relays can schedule concurrent transmissions with packet-level (hence coarse) synchronization. The receiver then extracts multiple versions of each relayed packet via a collision-resolution algorithm, thus realizing the diversity gain of cooperative communication. We demonstrate the feasibility of DAC by prototyping and testing it on the GNURadio/USRP software radio platform. To explore its relevance at the network level, we introduce a DAC-based MAC, and a generic approach to integrate the DAC MAC/PHY layer into a typical routing algorithm. Considering the use of DAC for multiple network flows, we analyze the fundamental tradeoff between the improvement in diversity gain and the reduction in multiplexing opportunities. DAC is shown to improve the throughput and delay performance of lossy networks with medium-level link quality. Our analytical results are also confirmed by network-level simulation in ns-2.