Performance analysis of cooperative macro-diversity in Rayleigh-lognormal composite fading

Based on the concept of multi-hop relaying, a cooperative macro-diversity system is suggested. In the Rayleigh-lognormal composite fading environment, the performance of a hexagonal macro-diversity cellular system is investigated. The maximum ratio combining (MRC) is considered for the uplink analysis of outage probability and bit error rate (BER) for differential phase shift keying (DPSK). Numerical results show that the performance of the new system outperforms that of the conventional single-hop macro-diversity system. Multi-hop relaying can enhance the robustness of performance, and it is helpful in improving the reliability of the radio link.