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Free space optical (FSO) communication systems provide high bandwidth in unregulated spectrum and act as a powerful line-of-sight wireless connectivity solution. The performance of FSO systems can be seriously impaired by fading as a result of atmospheric turbulence and/or pointing errors due to misalignment. In the context of FSO systems, relaying was proposed as an effective fading mitigation technique due to the fact that the variance is distance-dependent in turbulence channels. In this article, we present a unified performance analysis of multi-hop FSO systems over Double Generalized Gamma (DGG) turbulence channels with pointing error impairments. We assume amplify-and-forward relaying and consider both heterodyne detection and intensity modulation with direct detection. We derive tight closed-form expressions for the outage probability and bit error probability of both fixed-gain and channel state information (CSI)-assisted relaying in terms of the bivariate Fox-H functions and Fox-H functions, respectively. We further analyze asymptotic behavior of the outage probability in terms of simple elementary functions and obtain the achievable diversity orders. Diversity gain is found to be a function of atmospheric turbulence parameters, pointing error, detection type and the number of hops. Monte Carlo simulation results are further provided to verify the accuracy of the derived expressions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a network-coded cooperative (NCC) system that consists of $N \ge 2$ sources, $M\ge 1$ decode-and-forward (DF) relays, and a single destination. The relays perform network coding (NC) on the received sources’ symbols using maximum distance separable (MDS) codes. For this system, we propose the most generalized user-relay selection (GURS) scheme in the literature that selects any arbitrary subsets of $K$ users and any arbitrary subsets of $L$ relays subject to practical constraints such as load balancing conditions and scheduling policy. Our analytical results and design guidelines generalize and subsume all existing results as special cases. To this end, we derive a new closed-form outage probability (OP) expression, assuming non–identically and independently distributed (n.i.i.d.) Rayleigh fading channels. The asymptotic outage expression at high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime is further derived, based on which, the achievable diversity order and coding gain are quantified. The theoretical derivations are also validated through Monte-Carlo simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the performance limits of underwater visible light communication (UVLC) systems. We first develop a closed-form path loss expression as a function of transceiver parameters and water type. We then utilize this new expression to determine the maximum achievable link distance for UVLC systems in pure sea, clear ocean, coastal water, and harbor water. Our results demonstrate that the maximum achievable distance is limited to a few tens of meters. This necessitates the deployment of relay-assisted UVLC systems to extend the transmission range. We consider both detect-and-forward and amplify-and-forward relaying. For each relaying method, we first consider a dual-hop UVLC system and determine optimal relay placement to minimize the bit error rate (BER). Then, we consider a multi-hop system with equidistant relays and determine the maximum achievable distance for a given number of hops to satisfy a targeted end-to-end BER. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate cooperative visible light communication (VLC) system where an intermediate light source acts as a relay terminal. We assume that relay terminal operates in full-duplex mode. In contrast to radio frequency counterparts, full-duplex VLC terminal is relatively easier to implement due to directive propagation characteristic of light. We first model VLC relay terminal taking into account loop interference channel based on ray tracing simulations. Then, we investigate error rate performance of the relay-assisted VLC system. Our performance evaluations demonstrate the superiority of full-duplex relaying over half-duplex counterpart especially for high modulation sizes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Network-coded cooperation (NCC) is an effective method to improve the throughput efficiency in cooperative wireless networks. The combined use of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) with NCC has been further studied in the literature to exploit the multipath diversity gains. In this paper, we consider orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA), an extension of OFDM to a multiuser system where subsets of carriers are assigned to different users. We first derive a closed-form expression for the outage probability of NCC-OFDMA over Rician fading channels and then present the asymptotical and finite-SNR DMT expressions. Our results provide insight into the performance mechanisms under practical SNR regime of NCC-OFDMA systems and demonstrate that NCC-OFDMA is able to fully exploit both frequency and spatial diversity. We also show that the derived finite-SNR DMT converges to an asymptotical one as expected. Furthermore, special cases for our derived analytical expressions are presented, to show that the derived expression is a generalized case of the related the state of the art results. Simulation results are further presented to verify our theoretical analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Ultraviolet (UV) communication enables non-line-of-sight (NLOS) outdoor wireless connectivity and is particularly desirable to relax or eliminate pointing and tracking requirements of infrared links. In comparison to infrared counterparts, UV links are subject to relatively higher path loss as well as intersymbol interference resulting from frequency selective nature of the channel. In this paper, we propose the powerful combination of relay-assisted transmission and multi-carrier architecture based on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). Specifically, we consider a cooperative diversity system with orthogonal cooperation protocol and use DC-biased optical OFDM as the underlying physical layer. We consider both amplify-and-forward (AF) and detect-and-forward (DF) relaying. We investigate the error rate performance of the proposed relay-assisted OFDM UV system under consideration and demonstrate performance gains over point-to-point OFDM UV systems. We further determine optimal power allocation schemes to improve the performance. We also propose a variable-rate UV OFDM system and improve system throughput via bit loading. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we consider a cascaded radio frequency (RF) and hybrid RF/free space optical (FSO) system where several mobile users transmit their data over an RF link to a decode-and-forward relay node (e.g., a small cell base station) and the relay forwards the information to a destination (e.g., a macro-cell base station) over a hybrid RF/FSO backhaul link. The relay and the destination employ multiple antennas for transmission and reception over the RF links while each mobile user has a single antenna. The RF links are orthogonal to the FSO link but half-duplex with respect to each other, i.e., either the user-relay RF link or the relay-destination RF link is active. For this communication setup, we derive the optimal fixed and adaptive link allocation policies for sharing the transmission time between the RF links based on the statistical and instantaneous channel state information (CSI) of the RF and FSO links, respectively. Thereby, we consider the following two scenarios depending on the delay requirements: 1) delay-limited transmission where the relay has to immediately forward the packets received from the users to the destination, and 2) delay-tolerant transmission where the relay is allowed to store the packets received from the users in its buffer and forward them to the destination when the quality of the relay-destination RF link is favorable. Our numerical results illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed communication architecture and link allocation policies, and their superiority compared to existing schemes, which employ only one type of backhaul link. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Free space optical (FSO) links provide an efficient point-to-point wireless transmission solution. They are particularly useful for filling the connectivity gap between the radio frequency (RF) access network and the fiber optic-based backbone network. To address this combined use, there has been a growing interest in so-called mixed RF/FSO systems where RF transmission is used at one hop and FSO transmission at the other in a dual-hop configuration. In this paper, we investigate the performance of mixed RF/FSO systems along with a direct RF link where the FSO link and RF links, respectively, experience double generalized gamma turbulence with pointing error and Nakagami-$m$ fading. Moreover, the effect of cochannel interference is considered at both relay and destination. Under the assumption of amplify-and-forward relaying and selection combining at the destination, we derive closed form expressions for outage probability and bit error probability in terms of Meijer’s-G and two-variate Fox-H functions. Our analysis provides a generalized framework for several existing results, since our adopted turbulence and fading statistical models are the most general ones. Based on the high signal-to-noise-ratio analysis, we further provide a diversity gain analysis and discuss the bottlenecks in the mixed RF/FSO systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we investigate the information theoretic performance of parallel relaying in free-space optical (FSO) communications over Gamma-Gamma fading channels. We consider an intensity modulation/direct-detection (IM/DD) FSO system with a single relay and a line-of-sight link between the source and the destination. Considering both amplify-and-forward and decode-and-forward relaying, we develop performance characterizations of each relaying mode in terms of outage probability, diversity gain, coding gain, and diversity-multiplexing tradeoff (DMT). Our results demonstrate that parallel relaying improves the performance of FSO systems by bringing diversity advantages. In addition, both relaying modes achieve the same DMT and diversity gain while their coding gains can be different depending on underlying channels' characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we investigate a relay-assisted visible light communication (VLC) system where an intermediate light source cooperates with the main light source. Specifically, we consider two light sources in an office space: one is the information source employed on the ceiling and the other one is a task light. Our system uses dc biased optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (DCO-OFDM) where the task light performs relaying to assist the communication and operates in half-duplex mode for both amplify-and-forward and decode-and-forward relaying. We investigate the bit error rate (BER) performance of the relay-assisted VLC system and optimize the performance through optimal ac/dc power allocation under illumination constraints. The dc power allocation is determined by sharing the number of LED chips between the terminals to satisfy a desired luminance ratio. The ac power allocation decides the fraction of the information signal power to be consumed at the terminals in order to minimize the BER. Numerical results reveal that cooperation brings significant performance gains over direct transmission. We further provide comparisons of two relaying techniques under consideration and discuss the effect of clipping noise on the error rate performance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we investigate the performance of a cooperative vehicular network over a doubly selective fading channel using multiple antennas at source and destination vehicles. Under the assumption of amplify-and-forward (AF) relaying with orthogonal cooperation protocol and Alamouti-type space–time block coding (STBC), we derive a pairwise error probability (PEP) expression and demonstrate the achievable diversity gains. Our results demonstrate that, via proper linear constellation precoding and digital phase sweeping (DPS), the cooperative vehicular scheme is able to extract the maximum available diversity in frequency (through multipath diversity), time (through Doppler diversity), and spatial (through antenna and cooperative diversity) dimensions. We further conduct Monte Carlo simulations to confirm the analytical derivations and present the error rate performance of the vehicular scheme under various mobility conditions and scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we investigate the performance of a cooperative orthogonal frequency-division multiple-access (OFDMA) system with decode-and-forward (DaF) relaying. Specifically, we derive a closed-form approximate symbol-error-rate expression and analyze the achievable diversity orders. Depending on the relay location, a diversity order up to (LSkD + \1) +\break \summ = 1^{M}\min(LSkRm + \1, LRmD + \1) is available, where $M$ is the number of relays, and LSkD + \1, LSkRm + \1, and LRmD + \1 are the lengths of channel impulse responses of source-to-destination, source-to- $m$th relay, and $m$th relay-to-destination links, respectively. Monte Carlo simulation results are also presented to confirm the analytical findings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In a conventional cellular system, devices are not allowed to directly communicate with each other in the licensed cellular bandwidth and all communications take place through the base stations. In this article, we envision a two-tier cellular network that involves a macrocell tier (i.e., BS-to-device communications) and a device tier (i.e., device-to-device communications). Device terminal relaying makes it possible for devices in a network to function as transmission relays for each other and realize a massive ad hoc mesh network. This is obviously a dramatic departure from the conventional cellular architecture and brings unique technical challenges. In such a two-tier cellular system, since the user data is routed through other users? devices, security must be maintained for privacy. To ensure minimal impact on the performance of existing macrocell BSs, the two-tier network needs to be designed with smart interference management strategies and appropriate resource allocation schemes. Furthermore, novel pricing models should be designed to tempt devices to participate in this type of communication. Our article provides an overview of these major challenges in two-tier networks and proposes some pricing schemes for different types of device relaying. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, weinvestigate the outage performance of free-space optical mesh networks, which build upon the combination of serial (multi-hop) and parallel relaying. We assume log-normal atmospheric turbulence channels and derive outage probability expressions for the multi-hop parallel relaying scheme under consideration. Our outage probability analysis demonstrates substantial performance improvements with respect to both standalone serial and parallel relaying schemes. Furthermore, we present a diversity gain analysis and quantify the achievable diversity order in terms of the number of relays and the turbulence channel parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we study network—coded cooperative diversity (NCCD) systems comprising multiple sources, one relay, and one destination, where the relay detects the packets received from all sources and performs Galois field (GF) network coding over rm GF(2^m) before forwarding a single packet to the destination. Assuming independent Rayleigh fading for all links of the network, we derive simple and accurate closed—form approximations for the asymptotic symbol and bit error rates of NCCD systems. The derived error rate expressions are valid for arbitrary numbers of sources, arbitrary modulation schemes, and arbitrary constellation mappings and provide significant insight into the impact of various system and channel parameters on performance. Moreover, these expressions can be exploited for optimization of the constellation mapping as well as for formulation of various NCCD system optimization problems including optimal power allocation, relay selection, and relay placement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relay-assisted free-space optical (FSO) transmission exploits the fact that atmospheric turbulence fading variance is distance dependent and yields significant performance gains by taking advantage of the resulting shorter hops. In this paper, we investigate how to determine optimal relay locations in serial and parallel FSO relaying so as to minimize the outage probability and quantify performance improvements obtained through optimal relay placement. We further present a diversity gain analysis for serial and parallel FSO relaying schemes and quantify their diversity advantages in terms of the number of relays and channel parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast of the United States in 2005, it severely damaged the telecommunications infrastructure, isolating the area from the outside world. With all the high-end emergency communication gear in its path being knocked out by the hurricane, highfrequency (HF) amateur radio systems played a critical role in rescue and recovery operations. Such tragic incidents have resulted in re-appreciation of the "good old" HF technology that has been an essential part of worldwide information transmission since the advent of radio. HF systems traditionally have been associated with analog voice and very-low-rate data transmission. With the shift from analog to digital in voice communication and increasing demands for high-rate data transmission (e.g., email, Internet, FTP), HF communication has been going through a renaissance. Innovative techniques are required to push the capacity limits of the HF band. Our tutorial provides a contemporary overview of HF communication and discusses cooperative diversity as an enabler to support the challenging expectations of future-generation HF communication systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this letter, we propose a novel enhanced maximal—ratio combining (E—MRC) scheme for multi—branch decode—and—forward (DF) cooperative diversity systems consisting of a source, a destination, and multiple relays. This scheme employs adjustable parameters at the relays and the destination which enable this scheme to appropriately adapt to variations in the source—relay and relay—destination channel gains. For the proposed E—MRC scheme, we analyze the asymptotic error rate performance for high signal—to—noise ratios and Rayleigh fading. Based on the obtained analytical expressions, we find the optimal parameters that lead to minimization of the asymptotic error rate. Furthermore, we compare the error rate performance as well as the feedback overhead of E—MRC with those of important DF schemes, namely, cooperative MRC (C—MRC) and two DF schemes based on the link adaptive regeneration (LAR) concept, namely, LAR—αinst and LAR—α. We show that although the feedback requirements of E—MRC are similar to those of LAR—α, E—MRC achieves a performance similar to that of LAR—αinst, which has a substantially higher feedback overhead. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this letter, we investigate the performance of a dual-hop free space optical link with an all-optical amplify-and-forward relay. We employ photon counting methodology and derive closed form expressions for the end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio and the outage probability. In our derivations, we consider either full or partial channel state information (CSI) at the relay and take into account practical limitations such as amplifier noise and filtering effects. Our results indicate significant performance improvements over direct transmission and furthermore demonstrate that semi-blind relaying (which depends only on statistical CSI) provides nearly identical performance to its full-CSI counterpart. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we investigate the error rate performance of a cooperative network with adaptive decode-and-forward (DF) relaying over time-selective frequency-flat Rayleigh-fading channels. We assume pilot-symbol-assisted modulation (PSAM) for the estimation of time-varying fading channel coefficients. For the system under consideration, we derive an exact closed-form expression for the average bit/symbol error rate, which is further validated through Monte Carlo simulations. Such closed-form solutions are highly desirable because they allow for rapid and efficient performance evaluation. Through the derived expression, we also demonstrate the effect of various system parameters such as the number of relays, Doppler values, and filter length on system performance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we investigate the performance of an amplify-and-forward (AF) cooperative diversity system with multiple relays in the presence of channel estimation errors. We consider both conventional relaying (in which all relay nodes participate in the relaying phase) and opportunistic relaying (in which only a single relay is allowed to participate). We derive closed-form expressions for error probability, outage probability, and ergodic channel capacity. The derivations are confirmed through Monte Carlo simulations. We further deploy the derived expressions to obtain optimal power allocation rules for performance improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this letter, we investigate cooperative diversity with relay selection over cascaded Rayleigh fading channels. In particular, we analyze the performance of a relay selection scheme for cooperative vehicular networks with the decode-and-forward (DF) protocol. Only the “best” relay, which satisfies an index of merit, is selected. We ignore the direct transmission between the source (S) and its destination (D), and assume that the destination has perfect knowledge of the S \to R and R \to D channel gains. We study the performance of the underlying scheme in terms of outage probability and investigate its achievable diversity order. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we propose an adaptive power loading algorithm for an OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing)-based multi-relay regenerative network with relay selection. The proposed scheme is based on selecting the "best" relay(s) according to different strategies and distributing the power adaptively among the subcarriers of source and selected relay(s) as to minimize an upper bound on the bit error rate (BER). Our Monte Carlo simulation results demonstrate superior performance gains through power loading with respect to conventional equal power loading schemes. The effects of imperfect channel estimation and relay location on the BER performance are further discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate multi-hop relaying as an efficient fading mitigation tool for coherent free-space optical (FSO) systems over atmospheric turbulence channels. We consider an FSO relaying system with decode-and-forward relay nodes and multiple heterodyne receivers with modal compensation. Based on a recently introduced statistical characterization for the combined effects of log-normal turbulence fading and modal compensation, we derive the outage probability and quantify the potential performance improvements through the derivation of diversity-multiplexing tradeoff (DMT) and diversity gain. Our outage analysis yields impressive power savings for multi-hop relaying even with a single-relay. In addition, the DMT analysis in practical signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) ranges demonstrates that multi-hop transmission scheme improves finite-SNR diversity gain throughout the range of the multiplexing gain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate bit and power allocation strategies for an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) cooperative network over frequency-selective fading channels. We assume amplify-and-forward relaying and consider the bit error rate (BER) performance as our performance measure. Aiming to optimize the BER under total power constraint and for a given average data rate, we propose three adaptive algorithms; optimal power loading (OPL), optimal bit loading (OBL), and optimal joint bit and power loading (OBPL). Our Monte Carlo simulation results demonstrate performance gains through adaptive bit and power loading over conventional non-adaptive systems as well as currently available adaptive cooperative scheme in the literature. The impact of practical issues on the performance of proposed adaptive schemes such as imperfect channel estimation and limited feedback is further discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we propose high-rate distributed space-time-frequency codes (DSTFCs) to exploit maximum achievable diversity gains over frequency-selective fading channels. The proposed designs achieve full-rate for any number of cooperative nodes, and allow channel variations over multiple OFDM blocks within one DSTFC codeword. We analyze diversity gains of DSTFCs through both conditional and average pairwise error probability (PEP), and we proposes better design criteria based on one-side channel conditional PEP. We show that the difference between the frequency-selective channel orders of source-to-relay and relay-to-destination links may provide extra diversity advantages, thus additional performance gains. Through Monte-Carlo simulations, we demonstrate that proposed high-rate DSTFCs provide notable diversity advantages over existing designs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]