Distributed multi-antenna relaying in nonregenerative cooperative networks

Distributed multi-antenna relaying is analyzed in nonregenerative cooperative networks with unbalanced hops and independent but not necessarily identically distributed Rayleigh fading. Exact closed-form expressions are derived for the moment generating function of the end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the destination. Our analysis applies to arbitrary N number of antennas at the relay and arbitrary average received SNRs. Based on the derived results, we determine the symbol error rate with M-ary phase-shift keying. In addition, we carry out an asymptotic analysis in the high SNR regime. Our results provide fundamental insights into the impact of the number of antennas on the performance of nonregenerative relaying. We explicitly reveal that the diversity order is equal to N + 1. Theoretical analysis is verified by simulation.