Modelling Energy Consumption for the Cooperative MAC Based on Opportunistic Relaying

Opportunistic relaying is an important relay selection scheme for cooperative communication, it can dynamically select relay depending on instantaneous channel condition, which is a especially suitable for distributed networks. Some cooperative MAC based on opportunistic relaying have been proposed to enhance the system throughput. However, since the throughput is normally related to their energy consumption in distributed networks, it is important to examine the impact of opportunistic relaying on energy consumption. In this paper, we propose an energy analytical model for the cooperative MAC based on opportunistic relaying. Using the Modified Coop MAC (MCoopMAC) as a case, we have shown the efficacy of the proposed analytical model. Moreover, we find the optimum parameter value for opportunistic relaying and reveal the impact of opportunistic relaying on the energy consumption.