Impact of spatial diversity on spectral efficiency of cooperative relaying

Cooperative relaying takes advantage of spatial diversity to improve the performance of wireless communication systems. In theory, the larger the diversity, the more capability to combat fading. Several cooperative relaying schemes have been proposed in the past. Here we focus on timer-based-best-select, distributed space-time coded, and M-group space-time coded. In this paper, an equal transmission time model and a flexible transmission time model are proposed. The spectral efficiencies with respect to spatial diversity for the three schemes are compared. The results show that, under both models, timer-based-best-select performs better than the other two schemes.