Relay technology for multi-carrier systems: A research overview

Relay technology is an effective and efficient physical layer solution to the recent challenges in telecommunication. To be brief, a relay acts as a service station for wireless signal between source and destination. By employing relays, the reliability and quality of service (QoS) of a communication network can be improved significantly without much expenditure. For this reason, relay and its relevant technology have become a research emphasis and a large volume of literature focuses on them. To further investigate relay technology, it is necessary to understand its basic structure and the previous relevant works. Therefore, in this paper, the fundamental concepts and techniques relevant to relay will be reviewed and explained briefly. In addition, the links among these concepts and techniques will also be clarified and they all form a completed knowledge network for the future investigation. Finally, a number of potential research aspects of relay selection will be concluded.