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BER performance of decode-and-forward relaying using selection combining

over Rayleigh fading channels

Conference Paper · November 2008

DOI: 10.1109/ATC.2008.4760581 · Source: IEEE Xplore

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 2008 International Conference on Advanced Technologies for Communications
BER Performance of Decode-and-Forward Relaying
Using Selection Combining over Rayleigh Fading
Channels
Bao Vo Nguyen Quoc∗ , Hyung Yun Kong∗ , Chien Hoang Dinh† , Thuong Le Tien†
∗ School
of Electrical Engineering
University of Ulsan, San 29 of MuGeo Dong, Nam-Gu, Ulsan, Korea 680-749
Email: {baovnq,hkong}mail.ulsan.ac.kr
† Telecommunications Department, Hochiminh University of Technology, Vietnam
Email: {hdchien,thuongle}@hcmut.edu.vn
Abstract—This paper offers performance analysis of decode-
and-forward protocol employing selection combining (SC) at the
destination. For an arbitrary number of relays, BER for M PSK
of the system is investigated in both independent identically
distributed (i.i.d) and independent but not identically distributed
(i.n.d.) Rayleigh fading channels. A variety of simulations are
performed and show that they match exactly with analytic ones.
In addition, our results also show that the optimum number of
relays depend not only on channel conditions (operating SNR)
but also on modulation scheme which we exploit.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Signal fading is a serious problem in wireless commu-
nications and spatial diversity owing to deploying multiple
antennas at both transmitter and receiver is an efficient solution
to mitigate this effect [1]. However, when wireless users may
not be able to support multiple antennas due to size and power
limitations or other constraints, this diversity technique is not
exploited. To overcome such a restriction, cooperative commu-
nications was mentioned to allow single-antenna users to gain
some benefits of the spatial diversity [2]. The philosophy is
that a relay can assist information transmission of a source to a
destination. Therefore, the destination will receive transmitted
information more reliably since from statistical viewpoint, the
probability that all channels to the destination are deeply faded
is significantly reduced.
Various protocols have been proposed to achieve the benefit
offered by cooperative communication such as: amplify-and-
forward, decode-and-forward, coded cooperation. This pa-
per focuses on regenerative relaying (or hybrid decode-and-
forward [2] or selection relaying [3]). It is one of the simple
cooperative communications protocols where the relay must
make an independent decision on whether or not to decode
and forward the source information. Therefore, it avoids the
noise enhancement in fixed amplify-and-forward relaying and
remedies the decoding error retransmission in fixed decode-
and-forward relaying [3] (both drawbacks induced by the
relay). At the destination, the receiver can employ a variety
of diversity combining techniques to obtain diversity from
the multiple signal replicas available from the relays and the
978-1-4244-2681-2/08/$25.00 ©2008 IEEE
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source. Although optimum performance is highly desirable,
practical systems often sacrifice some performance in order to
reduce their complexity. Instead of using MRC which requires
exact knowledge of the channel state information, a system
may use SC which is the simplest combining method. It only
selects the best signal out of all replicas for further processing
and neglects all the remaining. This reduces the computational
costs and may even lead to a better performance than MRC,
because channels with very low SNR can not accurately
estimated and contribute much noise [4]. In addition, another
benefit of using SC as opposed to MRC is reduced hardware
complexity at the receiver. It is appropriate for sensor networks
which require fixed processing complexity at each node and
reduce more cost in implementation. In the past, relatively few
contributions concerning evaluating performance of the DF
relaying protocols with multi relays have been published [5]-
[9]. The performance is often evaluated by outage probability
and bit error rate. Some previous analyses always assumed
that the channels between the source, relays and destination
are i.i.d. Rayleigh. However, in real scenarios, the condition
of i.i.d. between channels is hard to obtain and considering
independent but not identically distributed channels is more
generalized and appropriate. Under this condition, a closed
form expression for outage probability and bit error rate of
DF relaying systems that exploited MRC at the destination
are presented in [5]- [8]. In [9], outage probability for the
relaying system that use SC at the destination is provided also
for both i.n.d. and i.i.d. channels. In this paper, we present
exact and closed-form expressions for BER of the DF relaying
protocol with an arbitrary number of relays that uses SC at the
destination for both cases of i.n.d. and i.i.d. channels. These
derivations were done for the system with M -PSK modulation.
In addition, we also study the impact of combining techniques
on the performance of the system by comparing a system that
uses SC to one that uses MRC.
II. S YSTEM M ODEL
We consider the wireless network illustrated in Fig. 1. It is
assumed that every channel between the nodes experiences
301
  
n = 0, 1, · · · , N . For each n, there are Nn possible subsets
of size n. Thus, the average BER at the destination can be
RN
written as
hSRN hRN D P̄b = Pr (CD = {∅}) B̄D (CD = {∅})
Ri
N
hSRi hRi D + Pr (CD = {Ri1 }) B̄D (CD = {Ri1 })
i1 =1  
hSR1 R1
hR1D N Pr (CD = {Ri1 , Ri2 })
hSD +
S D i1 ,i2 =1 ×B̄D (CD = {Ri1 , Ri2 })
S: Source ; Ri: i-th Relay ; D: Destination
i1 <i2
+···
  (1)

N Pr (CD = {Ri1 , Ri2 , . . . , Rin })
+
Fig. 1. Selective Decode-and-Forward Relaying model with N relays i1 ,i2 ,··· ,in =1 ×B̄D (CD = {Ri1 , Ri2 , . . . , Rin })
i1 <i2 <···<in
+···
 
slow, flat, Rayleigh fading. Due to Rayleigh fading, the 
N Pr (CD = {Ri1 , Ri2 , . . . , RiN })
2 2 +
channel powers, denoted by α0 = |hSD | , α1,i = |hSRi | ×B̄D (CD = {Ri1 , Ri2 , . . . , RiN })
2 i1 ,i2 ,··· ,iN =1
and α2,i = |hRi D | where i = 1, . . . , N are independent and i1 <i2 <···<iN
exponential random variables whose means are λ0 , λ1,i and
where Pr (CD = {Ri1 , Ri2 , . . . , Rin }) denotes the probability
λ2,i , respectively. The average transmit signal-to-noise ratio
for decoding set CD whose cardinality equals to n, and
(SNRs) for the source and the relays are denoted by ρS and
B̄D (CD = {Ri1 , Ri2 , . . . , Rin }) denotes average BER for the
ρRi with i = 1, · · · , N .
combined signal obtained by using SC after the destination
For medium access, frequency division multiple access
received forwarded signals from the decoding set CD as well
(FDMA), code division multiple access (CDMA) and time
as from the source (S). The probability for decoding set CD
division multiple access (TDMA) can be used. However, for
can be obtained by:
convenience, a time-division channel allocation scheme with
 ⎡ ⎤
(N + 1) time slots is occupied in order to realize orthogonal    
channelization, thus no inter-relay interference is considered Pr(CD ) = 1 − S̄i ⎣ S̄i ⎦ (2)
in the signal model. In the first time slot, the source broadcasts Ri ∈CD Ri ∈C
/ D
its data to destination and N relays. At the end of first where S̄i denotes the average symbol error rate of MPSK-
time slot, relays will demodulate and check whether their modulated symbols transmitted from the source to the ith
received data are right or wrong. We define a decoding set CD , relay.
whose members are relays which decode successfully. In real For the case of coherently detected M -PSK, to evaluate the
scenario, the decoding set is determined after receiving one average SER from the source to the ith relay on Rayleigh
frame from the source by employing cyclic-redundancy-check fading, we merely replace γS with log2 (M )ρS α1,i in [10, eq.
(CRC). However, in this paper, we assumed that the decoding (5)] and use MGF-based approach, namely
set can be decided by symbol by symbol for mathematical 

tractability of BER calculation [5]. It is obvious that CD is a 1 (M −1)π/M gM P SK
S̄i = M γi − dθ (3)
subset of C = {R1 , · · · , Ri , · · · , RN }. During the following π 0 sin2 θ
N time slots, members of the decoding set CD forward the
where g = sin2 (π/M ) and Mγi (s) = 1/(1 −
source information to the destination in their respective time
s log2 (M )ρS λ1,i ) for Rayleigh fading [11]. Finally, calculat-
slots. It is assumed that the receivers at the destination and
ing (3) gives the desired result [11, eq. (5A.14)]:
relays have perfect channel state information but no transmitter
 (M −1)π/M sin2 θ
channel state information is available at the source and relays. S̄i = π1 0 g log2 (M )ρS λ1,i +sin2 θ
dθ
⎡    ⎤
g log (M )ρS λ1,n
III. P ERFORMANCE A NALYSIS  M −1  1 − 1+g log2 2 (M )ρS λ1,n (MM −1)π × (4)
= M ⎣  
g log2 (M )ρS λ1,n
 ⎦
We first consider the general case of independent and not π −1 π
2 + tan 1+g log (M )ρS λ1,n cot M
2
identically distributed (i.n.d.) channels and then provide a
compact solution for the case when the channels are assumed With SC at the destination, the signal with the largest
to be independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.). In this received SNR is always selected. To simply notation, we define

paper, we assumed that the bit-symbol mappings follow a Gray a new set CD , which represents all nodes that transmit or relay

code. Using the theorem on total probability, the average BER the source information to the destination, i.e., CD = {S}∪CD

at the destination can be derived as a weighed sum of the BER and |CD | = n + 1. Let us define γ1 , γ2 , . . . , γn+1 denotes the
for SC at the destination corresponding to each set of decoding instantaneous SNR of each path received by the destination

relays CD . Because CD is a random set, the number of relays from the set CD with their expected values γ̄1 = λ0 ρS ,
in the decoding set CD is a random variable n, i.e. |CD | = n, γ̄2 = λ2,i1 ρRi1 , . . . , γ̄n+1 = λ2,in ρRin , respectively. So the

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instantaneous SNR at the output of the selection combiner can 0
10

then be expressed as −1
10

−2

γ = max(γ1 , γ2 , . . . , γK )
10

(5)

Average Bit Error Rate

−3
10

where K = n + 1. If the branches are independently faded −4

10
QPSK − N=3 − Analysis

then order statistics gives the cumulative distribution function −5

10
QPSK − N=3 − Simulation
8−PSK − N=3 − Analysis
8−PSK − N=3 − Simulation

(CDF). −6
10
QPSK − N=4 − Analysis
QPSK − N=4 − Simulation
8−PSK
8−PSK − N=4 − Analysis
8−PSK − N=4 − Simulation

K
 −7
10
QPSK − N=5 − Analysis
QPSK − N=5 − Simulation QPSK

Fγ (γ) = P [γ1 ≤ γ, . . . , γK ≤ γ] = Fγj (γ)

8−PSK − N=5 − Analysis

(6) −8
10
0
8−PSK − N=5 − Simulation

5 10 15 20 25
Average SNR per Bit [dB]
j=1

and Fγj (γ) = P (γj ≤ γ) is the corresponding CDF of γj . Fig. 2. Average Bit Error Rate for M -PSK
We know that when the strongest diversity branch is selected
from a total K available i.n.d. diversity branches, the joint pdf
of γ for K-branch SC is given by differentiating (6): where
    u u
u 1 tan−1 (αu
U) θU −θL
∂ 
K K K
 u
I θU , θL , Γj = + 12 βUu 12 + π 2π
fγ (γ) = Fγj (γ) = fγj (γ) P (γl ≤ γ) (7)  
tan−1 (αu
L)
∂γ j=1 j=1 l=1
− 12 βLu 12 + π
l=j
 
where, for the Rayleigh fading channel case: μuU = log2 (M )/Γj sin(θUu
), μuL = log2 (M )/Γj sin(θL u
)
 
1 −γj /γ̄j u
log2 (M )/Γj cos(θU ) u u
log2 (M )/Γj cos(θL )
fγj (γj ) = e , P (γl ≤ γ) = 1 − e−γ/γ̄l (8) u
αU =  u , αL =  u
γ̄j (μU )2 + 1 (μL )2 + 1
Substituting (8) into (7), we obtain [12]: μuU μu
⎡ ⎤ βUu =  u
, βLu =  u L
(μU )2 + 1 (μL )2 + 1

K
⎢ 
K
⎥
fγ (γ) = ⎣(−1)j−1 Γj e−Γj γ ⎦ (9) For the case of i.i.d., the BER of the system is obtained
j=1 i1 ,i2 ,...,ij =1 by simplifying (1) which can be expressed under binomial
i1 <i2 <···<ij
distribution. Letting λ0 = λ1,i = λ2,i = λ, ρS = ρRi =

j ρ for i = 1, . . . , N , hence γ̄j = γ̄ for j = 1, . . . , K, it is
where Γj = γ̄i−1
l
. To obtain the BER of the combined straightforward to arrive at
l=1
signal at the destination for M -PSK with SC on i.n.d. Rayleigh  n  N −n
Pr(CD ) = 1 − S̄ S̄ (13)
fading channels, we proceed analogous to [13].
M where S̄i = S̄ for i = 1, . . . , N . From (12), we can rewrite
1 
B̄D = eu Pr {θ ∈ Θu } (10) B̄D under simplified forms as
log2 M u=1 ⎧ ⎡   ⎤⎫
M ⎨ j−1 K ⎬
1  K (−1) j ×
where Θu = [θL u u
, θU ] = [(2u − 3)π/M, (2u − 1)π/M ] for B̄D = eu ⎣   ⎦ (14)
log2 M u=1 ⎩ j=1 I θU u u γ̄ ⎭
, θL ,j
u = 1, . . . , M and eu is the number of bit errors in the decision
region Θu . With no loss of generality, it is assumed that φ = 0 Substituting (13)-(14) into (1), we can obtain the end-to-end
, the probability Pr {θ ∈ Θu } is average bit error rate for DF relaying system for an arbitrary
θU 
∞
u number of relays with SC at the destination over i.i.d. Rayleigh
Pr {θ ∈ Θu } = fθ (θ |φ , γ)fγ (γ)dγdθ channels.
θLu 0
⎡ ⎤
u
θU
(11) IV. N UMERICAL R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION

K
⎢ 
K ∞ ⎥ Using the analysis presented in Section III, various number
= ⎣(−1)j−1 fθ (θ |φ , γ)Γj e−Γj γ dγdθ⎦
j=1 i1 ,i2 ,...,ij =1 θL 0
u of performance evaluation will be presented here and will be
i1 <i2 <···<ij compared with simulation results. For fair of comparison, we
where fθ (θ |φ , γ) is defined by [13, eq. (9b)]. By using [13,  assumed that the total transmitting power is fixed as: ρS +
N
eq. (10) and eq. (18)] and (9), we get: i=1 ρRi = ρDT where ρDT is the average transmit signal
⎡ ⎤ to noise ratio of S in case of direct transmission. In addition,
K K  for simplicity, it is assumed that λ0 , λ1,i and λ2,i with i =
 ⎢  1 ⎥ 1, . . . , N in Fig. 2 are uniformly distributed between 0 and
Pr {θ ∈ Θu } = ⎢(−1)j−1 u
I θU u
, θL , ⎥ (12)
⎣ Γ j
⎦ 1 and the average transmit SNRs for all transmit nodes are
j=1 i1 ,i2 ,...,ij =1
i1 <i2 <···<ij equal, i.e., ρS = ρR1 = · · · = ρRN = ρ = ρDT /(N + 1).

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 0
10 1-3 dB.
−1
10 V. C ONCLUSION
−2
10
The performance of DF relaying system with SC diversity
Average Bit Error Rate receiver operating over i.n.d. and i.i.d. Rayleigh fading chan-
−3
10
nels has been analyzed. Simulation results are in excellent
−4
10
agreement with the derived expression. The derived BER
expression is general and offers a convenient way to evaluate
QPSK − i.n.d. − Analysis
−5
10 QPSK − i.n.d. − Simulation the DF relaying system which exploits SC technique at the
16−PSK − i.n.d. − Analysis

−6
16−PSK − i.n.d. − Simulation
QPSK − i.i.d. − Analysis
destination. In addition, results also show that the loss in
10
QPSK − i.i.d. − Simulation
16−PSK − i.i.d. − Analysis performance of system employed SC technique is not much
16−PSK − i.i.d. − Simulation
−7
10
0 5 10 15 20
when compared to DF system that uses more complex MRC
Average SNR per Bit [dB]
technique. Moreover, our analysis reveals an interesting result
for this relaying protocol: the optimal number of cooperative
Fig. 3. BER of DF relaying with SC over i.i.d. and i.n.d channels relays under average BER viewpoint is a complex function of
two variables: operating SNR and modulation scheme.
0
10
N = 1 − MRC
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
N = 1 − SC
−1
10
N = 2 − MRC
N = 2 − SC This work was supported by the Korea Science and En-
N = 3 − MRC
N = 3 − SC gineering Foundation (KOSEF) grant funded by the Korea
−2
10
government (MOST) (No. R01-2007-000-20400-0).
Average Bit Error Rate

−3
10
−4
10
−5
10
−6
10
−7
10
0 5
Fig. 4. BER of DF relaying with SC and MRC (16-PSK, N = 1, 2, 3)
Fig. 2 shows the average BER of the DF relaying system
with different numbers of cooperative nodes. As shown in the
figure, in high SNR regime, the improvement of the average
BER is proportional to the number of relays. However with
low SNR regime, using more relays could make the system
performance worsen. For example, in Fig. 2, we can see that
the worst performance is obtained with 5 relays for QPSK
when SNR is lower than 15 dB. It means that the optimal
number of relays in DF relaying system depends not only on
SNR but also on modulation scheme. In Fig. 3, the BER of
DF relaying with 3 relays in both i.i.d and i.n.d. channels
was examined. The results are based on the assumption that
the total average SNR for i.i.d. channels is equal to that for
i.n.d channels, i.e., λ0 = λ1,1 = λ1,2 = λ1,3 = λ2,1 =
λ2,2 = λ2,3 = 2 for i.i.d. channels and λ0 = 2, λ1,1 = 2.8,
λ1,2 = 2.7, λ1,3 = 3.5, λ2,1 = 1.2, λ2,2 = 1.3, λ2,3 = 0.5 for
i.n.d. channels. It is seen that the performance of DF relaying
system under i.i.d. channels is a little bit better than that
under i.n.d. channels. In addition, our analytical results and
the simulation results are in excellent agreement. In Fig. 4,
BER curses confirm that, under same channel conditions, the
performance of system employing MRC receiver [5] is always
better as compared to an equivalent system using SC by around
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