Coded cooperative networks with channel estimation technique

This paper proposes a coherent distributed convolutional-based coding scheme with channel estimation based on pilot signals. Instead of transmitting the second frames on orthogonal sub-channels from the source and relay nodes to the destination, we used Alamouti scheme in the second frame. In particular, we assume that the channel state information is estimated at all nodes involved in the transmission process. Assuming decode-and-forward (DF) relaying, we derived upper bounds on the bit error rate (BER) for M-ary phase shift keying (M-PSK) transmission with channel estimation errors. Our analytical results have shown that a performance close to perfect channel knowledge can be obtained when the number of pilot symbols increases. At low pilot to noise ratio (PNR), the proposed scheme cannot provide significant performance improvements. Finally, the performance of the system degrades significantly. This diversity degradation is attributed to the channel estimation errors made at the relay and destination nodes.