Applying space time block coding in cooperative systems

To apply space time block coding(STBC) in a cooperative way, a novel three-hop cooperative system model is proposed in this paper comparing to conventional dual-hop cooperative systems, assuming all terminals have only one antenna for size limitation. Both source node and destination node request free nodes around them to perform as virtual antennas based on the simplest selection criterion, and then a virtual multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system is constructed, on which STBC or randomized STBC is applied. We show better performance comparing to single-input single-output (SISO) systems.