Distributed Space-Frequency Coding over Relay Channels

In this paper, the design of distributed space- frequency codes (DSFCs) implementing the decode-and-forward (DAF) protocol for wireless relay channels is considered. The proposed DSFCs are designed to achieve the frequency and cooperative diversities of the wireless relay channels. A two-hop system model, where there is no direct link from the source node to the destination node, is considered. We propose to use two stages of coding, namely, source node coding and relay nodes coding. The proposed DSFCs are proved to achieve full diversity of order NL where N is the number of relay nodes and L is the number of paths per channel.