Performance of decode-and-forward cooperative communications with channel estimation errors over Rayleigh fading channels

Channel estimation error problem is among the main causes of performance degradation in wireless networks. In this paper, we investigate the impact of channel estimation error on cooperative communications. We analyze the symbol error rate (SER) performance of decode-and-forward (DF) cooperative communications with channel estimation error over Rayleigh channels. The exact SER expressions and the upper bound expressions for M-PSK are derived. Simulations are finally provided to verify the correctness of our analysis. Given to high SNR, it shows that performance does not improve along with increasing SNR. The SER performance depends more on the channel link between relay and destination than link between source and relay.