Outage analysis for half-duplex partial decode-forward relaying over fading channels

We analytically evaluate the outage performance of the half-duplex partial decode-forward (PDF) relaying over Rayleigh fading channels. In PDF relaying, the source splits its information into cooperative and private parts, and the relay decodes only the cooperative information then forwards it to the destination coherently with the source. Assuming full CSI at the receivers and limited CSI at the transmitters, we analyze the outage performance by jointly considering outages of the cooperative and private parts at both the relay and the destination. In spite of additional outage at the relay and limited CSI at the transmitters, we show that PDF relaying achieves the full diversity order of 2 at high SNR. Numerical results confirm the analysis and show the advantage of the considered PDF scheme, with coherent transmission and joint decoding at the destination, over the existing DF and PDF schemes.