IEEE COMMUNICATIONS LETTERS, VOL. 16, NO.

1, JANUARY 2012

47

Comprehensive Error Analysis of Multi-Antenna Decode-and-Forward Relay in Fading Channels

Soumendra Nath Datta, Student Member, IEEE, Saswat Chakrabarti, Member, IEEE, and Rajarshi Roy

AbstractA comprehensive analytical framework of dualhop xed decode-and-forward cooperative networks with multiantenna relay and distributed spatial diversity is developed over generalized Nakagami- fading channels. The effect of Rician fading for the relay-destination link has been of special interest. The multi-antenna relay employs selection combining (SC) and the destination adopts distributed SC. Analytical expressions for the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) are derived and used to evaluate the bit error probability (BEP) for coherent and non-coherent binary modulation schemes in a unied manner. Numerical and simulation results are presented to illustrate the impact of the Rician K-factor and Nakagami- parameter on the end-to-end performance. Index TermsDecode-and-forward relay, Nakagami- fading, selection combining, unied expression, error performance.

I. I NTRODUCTION

OOPERATIVE diversity has emerged as an effective technique to realize spatial diversity benets in a distributed manner. Distributed diversity systems often employ simple combining technique to process the independent signal replicas [1]. In the context of relay processing, the decodeand-forward (DF) protocol is most commonly used, in which relays decode the signal received from the source and then encode and retransmit it to the destination. The limitations of using multiple antennas on mobile terminals can be alleviated through infrastructure-based xed relays carrying multiple antennas instead of involving multiple single-antenna relays in a network area, thereby reducing system deployment cost. Use of multi-antenna relay nodes in a two-hop cooperative network has been well-studied in [2], [3] and threshold-based SC and maximal-ratio combining have been adopted at the relays to evaluate the error rate under uncorrelated and correlated fading. In [1] and [4], the authors derived exact closed-form solutions for the outage probability and symbol error rate of DF systems in dissimilar Rayleigh and Nakagami- fading channels that use SC at the destination. Recently, in [5] and [6], a unied approach has been taken for multi-antenna amplify-and-forward (AF) relaying to evaluate the error rate in a compact form for binary modulations. In contrast to the symmetric fading assumptions, there are few performance analysis results for dual-hop relay networks under asymmetric fading scenarios [7], [8]. Such mixed

type fading channels exist for an indoor relay system [9], where there is always a line-of-sight (LoS) component in the relay-mobile link, which should be modelled as Rician fading. Outage probability and error performance of dualhop, single-antenna AF relaying system have been analyzed for Rayleigh/Rician (and Rician/Rayleigh) fading scenarios [7] and Nakagami-/Rician fading channels [8]. Motivated by the absence of a comprehensive error analysis for xed DF relay with coherent and non-coherent binary modulation schemes, in this letter we analyze SC-based multiantenna DF relay with distributed SC receiver under a unied framework over independent and non-identical at Nakagami fading channels for all links while investigating the effect of Rician fading in relay-destination link. A class of unied closed-form BEP solutions is derived using the computed CDF of the output SNR at distributed SC receiver. The unied approach eliminates the need for BEP calculation for individual binary modulation schemes separately. Also, the applicability of the generalized Nakagami- model has been corroborated with preferred SNR region of interest. II. S YSTEM M ODEL WITH M ULTI - ANTENNA DF RELAY The two-hop relay architecture consists of a multi-antenna relay , placed between a single antenna source and destination . has one transmitting antenna and receiving antennas, and is assumed to be operative in half-duplex mode. In the rst time slot, broadcasts a signal that is received by both and . stores this signal for future processing. then performs SC combining of the signals received in the rst time slot and forwards the decoded signal to in the second time slot. Thus, receives directly through link as well as indirectly through the virtual link. The end-toend SNRs of the and path are represented by and , respectively. With the xed DF protocol in which the relay terminal is always active to assist the direct communication, the dual-hop channel can be tightly approximated in the high SNR regime as follows [10], [4]: (1) = min { , } where, , denote the instantaneous SNRs of respective links and ]for a -branch SC-based relay, = }2 { [ (1) () () () () max , ..., with = /0 where, is the fade sample at receive antenna , is the bit energy, 0 is the single-sided power spectral density of the AWGN and = [ ] is the average SNR per bit at the input of a receiving node as indicated by = , , . In the distributed SC scheme [1, eq. (1)], the destination combines the received signals from the and links using SC and the instantaneous SNR is given by = max { , }.

Manuscript received July 27, 2011. The associate editor coordinating the review of this letter and approving it for publication was G. Giambene. S. N. Datta and S. Chakrabarti are with the G. S. Sanyal School of Telecommunications, IIT Kharagpur, India-721302 (e-mail: soumendra@gssst.iitkgp.ernet.in, saswat@ece.iitkgp.ernet.in). R. Roy is with the Dept. of E & ECE, IIT Kharagpur, India (e-mail: royr@ece.iitkgp.ernet.in). Digital Object Identier 10.1109/LCOMM.2011.111611.111622

c 1089-7798/12$31.00 2012 IEEE

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IEEE COMMUNICATIONS LETTERS, VOL. 16, NO. 1, JANUARY 2012

III. BEP A NALYSIS USING U NIFIED A PPROACH A unied expression for conditional error probability of binary signalling schemes in terms of complementary incomplete gamma function (, ) is provided in [11] as (2) () = (, )/2 () where, the values of {, } are specied in [11, eq. (9), (14)] and () is the gamma function [12]. An alternative approach of the traditional PDF method described in [6, eq.(2)] to evaluate the BEP, can be stated in terms of the CDF () of output SNR as () =
0 where () denotes the rst derivative of (), the conditional BEP in AWGN. One can identify that (, ) in (2), when differentiated using the relation (, ) = 1 exp (), simplies the integration process in (3). In the following, a class of generalized closed-form solutions for the CDF and BEP is derived for a SC-based multi-antenna relay for coherent and non-coherent binary modulation schemes in a unied manner with the CDF based approach of (3) while considering non-identical Nakagami- fading for all links. The resultant expressions are attractive for simplicity and a kind of novel ndings in its genre. () ()

(3)

( ) (+) where, (, , , ) = (+)+ 2 1 1, + ; + 1; + and = / , = , = + , = + ( + 1) , = + , = + and = , = / and 2 1 (, ; ; ) denotes the Gauss hypergeometric function [12]. According to Nakagami, there is a close t between the -distribution and the Rician model through the transformation, 2 = 2 , but it is further observed that this interrelation formula may not be very good when the SNR is large but ts well for low SNR values [13]. Therefore, exact analysis with Rician statistics for link is presented below with novel unied BEP expression while the applicability of the generalized Nakagami- model has been corroborated with preferred SNR region of interest in Section IV. B. BEP analysis under distributed SC with Nakagami- faded , links and Rician faded link Asymmetric fading environment is often encountered in an indoor relay scenario [9]. To evaluate the BEP, the CDF of is derived utilizing [2, eq. (12)] and making use of [7, eq. (4)] to get the CDF of , the CDF of , () is nally derived as 1( 1) 1 (, , ) () = 1(/ ( )) ( ) exp {( + 1) } 1 2, {2(1 + )/ } (7)
=0 =0 =0

A. BEP analysis with distributed SC and Nakagami- fading In order to determine the BEP, the CDF of the SNR at the output of the -branch SC-based relay receiving signals through multiple independently faded links with identical is derived utilizing [2, eq. (12)]. Thereafter, substituting the resultant CDF () and the CDF of given in [8, eq. (2)], the CDF of over the dual-hop DF relay-assisted path given by () = 1 [1 ()] [1 ()] following (1) is nally derived as 1( 1) 1 (, , ) () = 1 ( )( ) =0

where, 1 (, ) is the rst-order Marcum Q-function [14, eq. (16)]. Now substituting the CDF of SNR , () given in [5, eq. (3)] and (7) into (5) and thereafter inserting (2) and the resultant CDF expression from (5) into (3), unied solution for () is evaluated using [14, eq. (81)] [ 1 1 (+) () () = () 2 () (+)+ =0 [ 1 1( 1) 1 ( ) ( ) (, , ) () =0 =0 ( ) ( ) =0 =0 =0 =0 exp { ( + 1) } ( , ( / ) ) (4) { } ]] 1 ( 1)! {(+1) } and where, (, , ) = (, ) (+1) (, , , ) ()(, , , ) ! ( ) ( + 1) =1 =0 1 (, ) = (1) with dened in [2, eq. (8) ( ) (12)] and = +, = / . In a distributed ( +) SC receiver, the CDF of the SNR at the SC output of where, (, , , ) = (+) + 1 1 + ; + 1; + destination receiver is given by and () = ( ) /!, = + ( + 1) , = + , (5) = + , = + , = (1 + )/ and 1 1 (; ; ) () = () () denotes the conuent hypergeometric function [12]. Kummers Now substituting the CDF of SNR , () stated in [5, eq. (3)] and (4) into (5) and thereafter inserting (2) and the transformation formula in [12, eq. (9.212.1)] and innite series resultant CDF expression from (5) into (3), () is derived representation of 1 (, ) have been employed to arrive at (8). in a new closed-form using [12, eq. (6.455.1)] as [ { 1 ( ) ( + ) 1 1 () = + 2 () ! ( + ) =0

IV. R ESULTS AND C ONCLUSION

For simulation, Monte Carlo technique is used to estimate the BEP while passing 106 symbols through the system with 1( 1) 1 an average of 50 different runs at every SNR value. Fig. 1 + (/ ( ) ( )) (, , ) shows the error performance of SC based -antenna relay =0 =0 =0 ( )}] under symmetric Nakagami- fading scenario and balanced 1 ( ) (, , , ) (, , , ) (6) links (i.e, = = ) for BFSK modulation. It is ! observed that at BEP = 105 , the xed DF relay with dual =0

DATTA et al.: COMPREHENSIVE ERROR ANALYSIS OF MULTI-ANTENNA DECODE-AND-FORWARD RELAY IN FADING CHANNELS

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10

10

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L=1 (Sim) L=2 (Sim) L=3 (Sim) Theoretical

L=1,mSD=1,mSR=1 (Sim) L=1,m L=3,m

SD

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=1,m =1,m

SR

=3 (Sim) =3 (Sim)

L=3,mSD=1,mSR=1 (Sim)
SD SR

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Theoretical

BEP

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mSD=1,mSR=1,mRD=1

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mSD=1,mSR=2,mRD=3
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Fig. 1. BEP of coherent BFSK considering different { , , }

Fig. 2.
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BEP of binary DPSK with different { , } and K factors

0

antenna exhibits about 1.5 dB superiority over that using a single antenna for { = 1, = 1, = 1} and a gain of 3.6 dB is achieved for { = 1, = 2, = 3} while observing insignicant SNR gains for > 2. Fig. 2 shows the error performance in an asymmetric fading environment for binary DPSK modulation and balanced links. The analytical curves are from (8) using 50 summations (=1,..,50), and simulated results closely match with analytical curves. When both and links are Rayleigh faded i.e.,{ = 1, = 1} and link having K=10 dB, a gain of 9.5 dB occurs at BEP=105 when is increased from 1 to 3. Having { = 1, = 3}, a constant gain of almost 2dB is found in the high SNR region using = 3 over single-antenna relay considering K=10 dB, whereas only marginal (almost none) gain is noticed for the same with K=6 dB. So, a large K-factor provides SNR gain in the high SNR regime i.e., > 15 dB. To validate the claim mentioned earlier regarding the interrelation equation between and , and we consider { = 1, = 2, = 3} { = 1, = 2, = 6.5} scenario with BPSK and it is being noted from Fig. 3 that for = 1, BEP evaluation using (6) with interrelation formula results in 3.58%, 9.65%, and 33.9% discrepancy at 6 dB, 9 dB and 15 dB SNR respectively over using the exact expression in (8) whereas for = 3, the respective discrepancy from the exact evaluation becomes 6.57%, 21.94%, and 74.95%. Thus BEP evaluation using parametric relationship ts closely over small SNR range; otherwise, the mismatch is signicant. In conclusion, it can be stated that since practical systems often operate at considerably lower SNR range, a generalized Nakagami- model advocated in this letter can be considered for Rician fading approximation as well due to the small difference observed between the actual and approximated results over lower SNR region. The derived results in a unied manner are useful to the network designers for performance evaluation in LoS/non-LoS conditions with a reasonable degree of accuracy in SNR region of interest. R EFERENCES
[1] J. Hu and N. Beaulieu, Performance analysis of decode-and-forward relaying with selection combining, IEEE Commun. Lett., vol. 11, no. 6, pp. 489491, June 2007.

mSD=1,mSR=2,K=6.5dB m
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=2,m

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Fig. 3. Theoretical BEP of BPSK with Nakagami-Rician comparison in link

[2] A. Adinoyi and H. Yanikomeroglu, Cooperative relaying in multiantenna xed relay networks, IEEE Trans. Wireless Commun., vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 533544, Feb. 2007. [3] H. Katiyar and R. Bhattacharjee, Performance of two-hop regenerative relay network under correlated Nakagami-m fading at multi-antenna relay, IEEE Commun. Lett., vol. 13, no. 11, pp. 820822, Nov. 2009. [4] T. Duong, V. N. Q. Bao, and H. J. Zepernick, On the performance of selection decode-and-forward relay networks over Nakagami-m fading channels, IEEE Commun. Lett., vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 172174, Mar. 2009. [5] S. N. Datta, S. Chakrabarti, and R. Roy, Comprehensive error performance analysis of distributed selection combining with multi-antenna amplify-and-forward relay over Nakagami-m fading channels, IET Elec. Lett., vol. 46, no. 22, pp. 15231525, Oct. 2010. [6] S. N. Datta and S. Chakrabarti, Unied error analysis of dual-hop relay link in Nakagami-m fading channels, IEEE Commun. Lett., vol. 14, no. 10, pp. 897899, Oct. 2010. [7] H. Suraweera, G. Karagiannidis, and P. Smith, Performance analysis of the dual-hop asymmetric fading channel, IEEE Trans. Wireless Commun., vol. 8, no. 6, pp. 27832788, June 2009. [8] W. Xu, J. Zhang, and P. Zhang, Performance analysis of dual-hop amplify-and-forward relay system in mixed Nakagami-m and Rician fading channels, IET Elec. Lett., vol. 46, no. 17, pp. 12311232, Aug. 2010. [9] Support of indoor relays in LTE-advanced, 3GPP, Tech. Rep. TS GRAN WG1 N0.58bis R1-094303, Oct. 2009. [10] T. Wang, A. Cano, G. Giannakis, and J. N. Laneman, High-performance cooperative demodulation with decode-and-forward relays, IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. 55, no. 7, pp. 14271438, July 2007. [11] A. Wojnar, Unknown bounds on performance in Nakagami channels, IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. COM-34, no. 1, pp. 2224, Jan. 1986. [12] I. S. Gradshteyn and I. M. Ryzhik, Table of Integrals, Series and Products, 7th edition. Academic Press, 2007. [13] P. Crepeau, Uncoded and coded performance of MFSK and DPSK in Nakagami fading channels, IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. 40, no. 3, pp. 487493, Mar. 1992. [14] W. Lindsey, Error probabilities for Rician fading multichannel reception of binary and n-ary signals, IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory, vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 339350, Oct. 1964.