Optimum Cooperation of the Cooperative Coding Scheme for Frequency Division Half-Duplex Relay Channels

This paper analyzes the effects of the level of cooperation (LOC) on the performance of a practical cooperative coding scheme for frequency division half-duplex relay links in general wireless ad-hoc networks. The end-to-end bit error probability (BEP) and the corresponding optimum LOG minimizing the end-to-end BEP are investigated for specific realizations using a family of rate compatible punctured convolutional (RCPC) codes. This paper shows that the BEP of the cooperative coding scheme depends on the LOC and there exists an optimum LOC for every specific realization. Further, it is shown that more than a certain level of cooperation is required to achieve possible cooperative gains in practical signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regions, and increasing LOC does not effect much on the BEP performance for sufficiently large LOCs