Orthogonal code design for MIMO amplify-and-forward cooperative networks

This paper is on the design of practical distributed space-time codes for wireless relay networks with multiple antennas terminals. The amplify-and-forward scheme is used in a way that each relay transmits a scaled version of the linear combination of the received symbols. We propose distributed orthogonal space-time codes which are distributed among the source node´s antennas and relays. Using linear orthogonal decoding in the destination makes it feasible to employ large number of potential relays to improve the diversity order. Assuming multiple amplitude modulation, we derive a formula for the symbol error probability of the investigated scheme over Rayleigh fading channels. Our analytical results have been confirmed by simulation results, using full-rate, full-diversity distributed codes.