Design of Collaborative Codes Achieving Space-Time Diversity

In wireless networks, the use of collaboration has been shown to provide an increase in reliability due to an increase in diversity. Specifically it has been shown that by having a variable time fraction where the relay(s) listen to the source, one can approach the performance of traditional space-time systems. In this paper, a practically realizable coding scheme is introduced. This scheme provides a framework whereupon we can study and analyze the application of well-known error control codes within this network protocol. Using the pairwise error probability, design criteria are developed. Simulation results show the diversity gain as well as the coding gain of simple collaborative codes versus traditional space-time codes.