Performance analysis of the cooperative communications based on opportunistic relaying from MAC layer perspectives

Opportunistic relaying is an important relay selection scheme for cooperative communication, which can dynamically select relay depending on instantaneous channel condition. A great deal of research has been conducted to study opportunistic relaying from the viewpoint of PHY layer and information theory. However, owing to the impact resulting from opportunistic relaying, there is no guarantee to enhance the network throughput in view of the medium access control (MAC) performance. In this paper, the system throughput of the cooperative communication based on opportunistic relaying is evaluated by exploiting the proposed analytical model, both the cooperative communication and opportunistic relaying are considered in the analytical studies. Simulations are conducted to further validate the effectiveness of the proposed model. In terms of performance analysis, we find the optimum parameter value for opportunistic relaying and reveal the impact of opportunistic relaying on the performance from the MAC layer perspectives.