Multi-hop cooperative communication has been investigated in order to overcome disadvantages such as fading, obstruction and low power. In addition, with the goal of increasing access capacity, the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation is being advanced as a solution. In this paper, we propose the approach of relay ordering in a Decode-and-Forward OFDM scheme. Combining techniques such as maximal ratio combining and selection combining are employed at receivers and approximate outage capacity probabilities are derived for evaluating system performance over frequency selective Rayleigh fading channels. Final, the expressions are validated by Monte-Carlo simulations, and are used to compare with the same scheme based relay selection.

The analytical derivation of the diversity-multiplexing tradeoff (DMT) for a half-duplex dynamic decode and forward (DDF) MIMO relay protocol has been regarded as an open problem. Recently, however, a minimization problem setting has been found, the solution of which corresponds to the DMT function for a half-duplex DDF MIMO relay protocol. In this paper, the DMT functions for three special half-duplex DDF MIMO relay protocols using two antennas at two of three nodes, source, relay, and destination nodes, and a single antenna at the other node are derived first. Then, the DMT function for a special half-duplex DDF MIMO relay protocol using two antennas at every node is derived. These DDF MIMO relay protocols are compared with one another and with some NAF MIMO relay protocols by simulation.

In this letter, the diversity-multiplexing tradeoff (DMT) function for a special half-duplex dynamic decode and forward (DDF) relay protocol using two source-antennas, two destination-antennas, and more than two relay-antennas is derived. It is shown that the performance of the DDF relay protocol can be substantially improved by increasing the relay-antenna number, but only for low multiplexing gains.

In this paper, we propose an exact analytical technique to evaluate the average capacity of a dual-hop OFDM relay system with decode-and-forward protocol in an independent and identical distribution (i.i.d.) Rayleigh fading channel. Four schemes, (no) matching "and" or "or" (no) power allocation, will be considered. First, the probability density function (pdf) for the end-to-end power channel gain for each scheme is described. Then, based on these pdf functions, we will give the expressions of the average capacity. Monte Carlo simulation results will be shown to confirm the analytical results for both the pdf functions and average capacities.

We analyze the performance of an adaptive communication scheme in which by employing limited feedback, the source will decide to transmit signal to the destination either by the direct link or by the direct and relaying links. Specifically, by using the instantaneous SNR as the metric, if the S-D link is better, the source will transmit to destination directly. Otherwise, the two-phase transmission mode will be triggered in which source cooperates with the relay or transmits twice within two time slots based on the quality of the received signal at the relay. Initially, the spectral efficiency is derived by calculating the probabilities of direct transmission and two-phase transmission mode. Subsequently, the BER performance for the adaptive cooperation schemes is analyzed by considering the BER routines of two events: the source transmits the signal alone or cooperates with the relay. Also, the optimum power allocation is studied based on the BER result. Finally, Monte-Carlo simulation results are presented to confirm the performance enhancement offered by the proposed scheme.