Performance Analysis of Incremental-Relay-Selection Decode-and-Forward Technique

We investigate the incremental relaying protocol in conjunction with relay-selection cooperative diversity networks with an aim to make efficient use of the degrees of freedom of the channels by exploiting a limited feedback signal from the destination. In particular, whenever the direct link from the source to the destination is not favorable to decoding, the destination will request the help from the best relay. The performance of the incremental-relay-selection decode-and-forward technique over independent non-identical Rayleigh fading channels is derived in terms of average bit error probability, outage probability and average channel capacity. The analytic results show that the system assisted by the selection relaying can achieve full diversity at low SNR regime and exhibits a 20 to 30 dB gain relative to direct transmission, assuming single-antenna terminals.