Particle filtering based data detection in a flat-fading relay-based communication system

In this paper, we deal with the problem of joint data detection and channel estimation in a relay-based communication system. We consider a system where an amplify-and-forward relay is used to transmit data between a receiver and a transmitter in flat-fading channels. Our proposed algorithms are based on particle filtering techniques. The algorithms are derived by representing the transmission process as a dynamic system where both the transmitter-to-relay and relay-to-receiver channels are modeled as second order autoregressive (AR) processes. The performance of the proposed algorithms is investigated through computer simulations that illustrate the effectiveness of the developed receivers in terms of their Symbol Error Rate (SER).