Effect of relaying on coverage in realistic deployment scenarios

In this paper, we investigate the impact of fixed relay deployment on coverage in a wireless infrastructure. We consider a realistic scenario with OFDM based transmission which takes into account some practical constraints and assumptions (path-loss models, power, etc...). We analyze and compare scenarios with relays which operate in both half-duplex and full-duplex modes. Relays are assumed to perform decode-and-forward strategy. We show that for half-duplex scenarios, multiple relays can be deployed to extend the coverage and to compensate the loss of the half-duplex constraint where SFN-like transmission is used at the relays, i.e, the relays share the same subcarriers. Full-duplex mode outperforms the half-duplex mode in terms of coverage on the expense of additional complexity at the receiver side and offers a more convenient solution when the relay transmission power is constrained. The main contribution of this paper is giving guidelines for relay deployment in practical environments, and providing insight into benefits relays can offer in terms of coverage extension in realistic deployment scenarios.