Multi-way MIMO amplify-and-forward relay networks with zero-forcing

A pair-wise transmit/receive zero-forcing (Tx/Rx ZF) transmission strategy is proposed and analyzed for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) amplify-and-forward (AF) multi-way relay networks (MWRNs). The performance of this system set-up is studied by deriving lower and upper bounds of the overall outage probability, the corresponding high signal-to-noise ratio outage approximations, and the achievable diversity-multiplexing trade-off. The proposed pair-wise Tx/Rx ZF transmission strategy possesses a lower implementation complexity as each source requires only the instantaneous respective source-to-relay channel knowledge. Moreover, our analysis provides valuable insights into practical MIMO AF MWRN implementation.