On Packet-Level Non-Altruistic Node Cooperation in Wireless Networks

In this paper, we investigate packet-level non-altruistic node cooperation in wireless networks with regenerative nodes. Since each node has its own data to transmit, pure relays do not exist. We prove that the split of transmit power has no impact on the diversity performance of non-altruistic cooperative transmissions. Despite the beneficial diversity gain, our results show that non-altruistic cooperative transmissions are not always superior to ordinary direct transmissions. We also evaluate the performance gains due to beneficial packet-level node cooperations in a multi-node wireless network. Simulation results show that favorable packet-level cooperative transmissions provide a substantial gain over ordinary direct transmissions.