Cooperative regions for cooperative MTCM systems

In a wireless network, collaboration among terminals represents an efficient way to improve the system´s performance. In this paper, we focus on a cooperative multiple trellis coded modulation (MTCM) system. The channels are modeled as frequency non-selective and quasi-static Rayleigh fading. Rather than making the assumption that a partner/relay is already known, the paper examines the issue of a partner/relay selection in a wireless network and investigates the cooperative regions for the 4 state, 8 state and 16 state 8-PSK 2-TCM codes introduced in [3]. In particular, we investigate the conditions for which cooperation is beneficial for individual terminals, as well as the scenarios when cooperation benefits both cooperating MTCM partners. The theoretical results are verified through numerical examples.