A novel relaying protocol in a cooperative network with decode-and-forward relays

Cooperative diversity techniques make a reduction in spectral efficiency despite of an increase in reliability. In this paper we propose a novel relaying protocol in a cooperative network with decode and forward (DF) relays to improve the spectral efficiency in addition to achieving full diversity order (maximum available reliability). The proposed protocol keeps the transmission rate fixed to the rate of point-to-point transmission and outperforms rather than conventional relaying protocols such as fixed, selection and incremental relaying protocols. The simulation results show the effectiveness of our method and confirm our claim.