Capacity scaling of relay networks with successive relaying

This paper studies the capacity scaling law of the multi-pair relay network with K source-destination pairs and M relays, where each node is equipped with a single antenna and works in half duplex mode. With the conventional two-slot relaying, the capacity was found to scale as K/2 log (M)+O(1) for fixed K and M → ∞. This paper shows that the capacity scaling law can be further improved to K log (M)+O(1) with successive relaying, as if the relays were full duplex. This scaling law can be achieved by a distributed coherent amplify-and-forward scheme, which only requires local channel state information (CSI) at each relay and statistical CSI at the sources and destinations.