A dynamic hybrid antenna/relay selection scheme for the multiple-access relay channel

We propose a dynamic hybrid antenna/relay selection scheme for multiple-access relay systems. The proposed scheme aims to boost the system throughput while keeping a good error performance. By using the channel state information, the destination node performs a dynamic selection between the signals provided by the multi-antenna relay, located in the inter-cell region, and the relay nodes geographically distributed over the cells. The multi-antenna relay and the single-antenna relay nodes employ the decode-remodulate-and-forward and amplify-and-forward protocols, respectively. Results reveal that the proposed scheme offers a good tradeoff between spectral efficiency and diversity gain, which is one of the main requirements for the next generation of wireless communications systems.