Distributed single carrier frequency-domain equalization for multi-relay cooperative networks over frequency selective Rician channels

In this paper, we investigate the performance of single-carrier frequency-domain equalization (SC-FDE) for distributed space-time block coded (DSTBC) systems with Non-Regenerative (or amplify-and-forward) relaying over frequency-selective Rician fading channels. Our performance analysis demonstrates that SC-FDE for DSTB is able to achieve a maximum diversity order of Σ^R_{i = 1} min (L_RiD, L_RiD) + R, where R is the number of relays, L_SRi and L_RiD are the channel memory lengths for source to i^th relay (S → R_i) link and i^th relay to destination (R_i → D) link, respectively. Simulation results are provided to corroborate the theoretical analysis.