Interference-limited opportunistic relaying with reactive sensing

This work evaluates opportunistic relaying in the presence of thermal noise as well as interference, when channel sensing is conducted reactively, in slow fading environments. The studied scenario employs a single gateway that provides access towards several destinations with weak links and exploits a network of intermediate relays. In sharp contrast to prior art, no inter-relay channel state information or communication is assumed, no network coding is needed, while low-complexity receivers at each destination are employed. It is shown that information can be relayed without delay, while harvesting benefits of cooperative diversity, even at the presence of interference. The participating relays are required to offer strong paths towards source and destination, while at the same time they are as "isolated" as possible from each other. From that perspective, the notion of relay "usefulness" is redefined in both noise and interference-limited environments, under opportunistic relaying.