Cooperative wireless relay networks using partial rateless codes

Cooperative communications enhance throughput, link reliability, power consumption, and coverage in wireless relay networks, where many relay nodes in the network work together in order to transmit information from a source to a destination [1], [2]. Many researches have been done to design and analyze the routing algorithms and protocols [3], [4]. However, frequent feedback is required for transmitter adjusting the phases of the transmit signal to optimize the receive signal [5]. Thus, the use of rateless codes has been introduced into cooperative relay networks [6], which are attractive because the realized data transmission rate is automatically a function of the instantaneous channel state, without the transmitting source or relays knowing it. Rateless codes generate a potentially infinite number of encoded symbols, which are transmitted until an acknowledgement is received from the recipient.