Imperfect timing synchronization in multi-hop cooperative networks: Statistical modeling and performance analysis

This paper studies a multi-hop cooperative network operating under imperfect timing synchronization. The timing errors at the receiving nodes are statistically modeled and the effects on the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) are derived. The distribution of SNR is then used to find the outage probability of the nodes in a hop which together with a Markov model provides the probability of making a successful hop. The results show that the timing synchronization errors reduce the one-hop success probability and the coverage of the network.