Energy efficiency of cooperative beamforming in wireless ad-hoc networks

Energy efficiency is a critical issue in wireless communication networks since most of the communication devices have limited energy capacity. Various strategies for maximizing energy efficiency have been proposed. In this paper, we analyze the energy efficiency of cooperative beamforming where the source and relay nodes construct a virtual Multiple-Input Single-Output (MISO) beamforming system. In the analysis, we consider all the energy consumption overheads incurred in forming a virtual MISO system. We show that cooperative beamforming achieves not only a higher energy efficiency, but also better spectral efficiency for large transmission distances.