Link adaptation and selection method for OFDM based wireless relay networks

We propose a link adaptation and selection method for the links constituting an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based wireless relay network. The proposed link adaptation and selection method selects the forwarding, modulation, and channel coding schemes providing the highest end-to- end throughput and decides whether to use the relay or not. The link adaptation and selection is done for each sub-channel based on instantaneous signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) conditions in the source-to-destination, source-to-relay and relay- to-destination links. The considered forwarding schemes are amplify and forward (AF) and simple adaptive decode and forward (DF). Efficient adaptive modulation and coding decision rules are provided for various relaying schemes. The proposed end-to-end link adaptation and selection method ensures that the end-to-end throughput is always larger than or equal to that of transmissions without relay and non-adaptive relayed transmissions. Our evaluations show that over the region where relaying improves the end- to-end throughput, the DF scheme provides significant throughput gain over the AF scheme provided that the error propagation is avoided via error detection techniques. We provide a frame structure to enable the proposed link adaptation and selection method for orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA)-time division duplex relay networks based on the IEEE 802.16e standard.