Wireless networks contain an inherent distributed spatial diversity that can be exploited by the use of relaying. Relay networks take advantage of the broadcast-oriented nature of radio and require node-based, rather than link-based protocols. Prior work on relay networks has studied performance limits either with unrealistic assumptions, complicated protocols, or only a single relay. In this paper, a practical approach to networks comprising multiple relays operating over orthogonal time slots is proposed based on a generalization of hybrid-automatic repeat request (ARQ). In contrast with conventional hybrid-ARQ, retransmitted packets do not need to come from the original source radio but could instead be sent by relays that overhear the transmission. An information theoretic framework is exposed that establishes the performance limits of such systems in a block fading environment, and numerical results are presented for some representative topologies and protocols. The results indicate a significant improvement in the energy-latency tradeoff when compared with conventional multihop protocols implemented as a cascade of point-to-point links.

A novel coding technique is proposed for the quasi-static fading relay channel. The source broadcasts a recursive code to both relay and destination. The relay decodes, interleaves, and re-encodes the message prior to forwarding. Because the destination receives both codes in parallel, a distributed turbo code is embedded in the relay channel. Results indicate a combined diversity and coding gain, which is significant even for simple constituent codes.

Cooperative diversity, which employs multiple nodes for the simultaneous relaying of a given packet in wireless ad hoc networks, has been shown to be an effective means of improving diversity, and, hence, mitigating the detrimental effects of multipath fading. However, in previously proposed cooperative diversity schemes, it has been assumed that coordination among the relays allows for accurate symbol-level timing synchronization at the destination and orthogonal channel allocation, which can be quite costly in terms of signaling overhead in mobile ad hoc networks, which are often defined by their lack of a fixed infrastructure and the difficulty of centralized control. In this paper, cooperative diversity schemes are considered that do not require symbol-level timing synchronization or orthogonal channelization between the relays employed. In the process, a novel minimum mean-squared error (MMSE) receiver is designed for combining disparate inputs in the multiple-relay channel. Outage probability calculations and simulation results demonstrate the not unexpected significant performance gains of the proposed schemes over single-hop transmission, and, more importantly, demonstrate performance comparable to schemes requiring accurate symbol-level synchronization and orthogonal channelization

An ad hoc network with a finite spatial extent and number of nodes or mobiles is analyzed. The mobile locations may be drawn from any spatial distribution, and interference-avoidance protocols or protection against physical collisions among the mobiles may be modeled by placing an exclusion zone around each radio. The channel model accounts for the path loss, Nakagami fading, and shadowing of each received signal. The Nakagami m-parameter can vary among the mobiles, taking any positive value for each of the interference signals and any positive integer value for the desired signal. The analysis is governed by a new exact expression for the outage probability, defined to be the probability that the signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR) drops below a threshold, and is conditioned on the network geometry and shadowing factors, which have dynamics over much slower timescales than the fading. By averaging over many network and shadowing realizations, the average outage probability and transmission capacity are computed. Using the analysis, many aspects of the network performance are illuminated. For example, one can determine the influence of the choice of spreading factors, the effect of the receiver location within the finite network region, and the impact of both the fading parameters and the attenuation power laws.