Energy Detection Based Signal-Time Coding for AWGN Relay Networks

Signal-Time Coding (STC), a novel transmission mechanism, was proposed recently. It combines the traditional encoding/modulation mode in the signal domain with the signal pulse phase modulation in the time domain and can achieve higher information flow rate in some cases for relay networks. However, there are still many fundamental problems to be investigated. This paper considers the implementing issue of STC in AWGN relay networks. Firstly, an energy detection based STC (ED-STC) scheme is proposed and the error probabilities of ED-STC in both the signal domain and the time domain are given. Secondly, a performance evaluation criterion, the reliable information per symbol (RIPS), is proposed to characterize the performance of STC in noisy wireless networks. Moreover, the performance bounds of the RIPS of ED-STC are derived. Numerical analysis show that ED-STC outperforms traditional transmission method in terms of effective information rate within some practical conditions.