Capacity of OFDM Two-Hop Relaying Systems for Medium-Voltage Power-Line Access Networks

Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) transmission is considered for a medium-voltage (MV) power-line access network (AN). In this paper, we analyze the channel capacity of OFDM-based two-hop relaying systems over MV power lines, where a single relay node is used between the source and destination nodes in an effort to enhance the channel capacity using either cooperative relaying (CR) or noncooperative relaying protocols. For each relaying protocol, the relay node operates in either the amplify-and-forward (AF) or the decode-and-forward (DF) mode. Numerical results show that the channel capacity of the CR protocol in the DF mode is superior to that in the AF mode, as well as to the NCR protocol in the AF and DF modes.