WLC33-2: On Relaying in Cooperative Static Channels

It is shown that regenerative relaying in a dual- hop diversity static or quasi-static relay channel can outperform non-regenerative relaying only if the source-relay link is reliable and power allocation to the source and the relay is optimized. In regenerative relaying, a maximal ratio combining receiver at the destination has an error floor at high signal-to-noise ratios. However, maximal ratio combining is not a maximum-likelihood structure in this application. Maximum-likelihood detection at the destination can remove this error floor, but cannot always make the performance of regenerative relaying surpass that of non- regenerative relaying. A hybrid protocol which avoids some of the limitations of previous relaying schemes is proposed. Conditions under which relaying increases the equivalent source-destination signal-to-noise ratio, and hence, the source-destination channel capacity are derived and the gain of the cooperation is calculated. The analysis provides quantitative measures for choosing the best relay among a set of candidates.