Reliable two-path successive relaying

Emerging two-path successive relaying protocols generally rely on error-free source-relay channels and/or interference-free inter-relay channels to achieve high-rate and full-diversity. In this paper, by removing these optimistic assumptions, a novel two-path successive relaying scheme that benefits from relay selection and distributed space-time block coding (STBC), and transfers the data from the source to the destination via relays in a reliable fashion is proposed. The proposed scheme can achieve full diversity without the requirement of perfect decoding at relays since not only the destination but also the relays benefit from distributed STBC and relay selection. As the target STBC, coordinate interleaved orthogonal design (CIOD) for two transmit antennas is considered. The average symbol error probability of the proposed scheme is derived and its error performance is compared with reference systems.