Optimal Amplify‐and‐Forward Scheme for Parallel Relay Networks with Correlated Relay Noise

This paper studies a parallel relay network where the relays employ an amplify‐and‐forward (AF) relaying scheme and are subjected to individual power constraints. We consider correlated effective relay noise arising from practical scenarios when the relays are exposed to common interferers. Assuming that the noise covariance and the full channel state information are available, we investigate the problem of finding the optimal AF scheme in terms of maximum end‐to‐end transmission rate. It is shown that the maximization problem can be equivalently transformed to a convex semi‐definite program, which can be efficiently solved. Then an upper bound on the maximum achievable AF rate of this network is provided to further evaluate the performance of the optimal AF scheme. It is proved that the upper bound can be asymptotically achieved in two special regimes when the transmit power of the source node or the relays is sufficiently large. Finally, both theoretical and numerical results are given to show that, on average, noise correlation is beneficial to the transmission rate — whether the relays know the noise covariance matrix or not.     

Sum rate–based relay selection strategy in FSO systems

We present a relay selection strategy for bidirectional free‐space optical (FSO) communication systems. A parallel relayed FSO network consisting of multiple decode‐and‐forward protocol based two‐way relays (TWRs) is considered. Using the proposed relay selection strategy, one TWR is selected to establish an FSO communication link between two non‐line‐of‐sight FSO transceivers. As the two‐way communication process is characterized by achievable sum rate of the system, the relay selection strategy is designed such that the achievable sum rate is maximum. Considering a Gamma‐Gamma distributed optical channel with path loss and pointing errors, we present a mathematical framework for the proposed relay selection strategy.     

Achievable rate region with secrecy constraints for secure communication in two‐way relay networks

In this paper, we consider a two‐way relay network consisted of two sources and multiple relays in the presence of an eavesdropper, where the cooperative beamforming strategy is applied to exploit the cooperative diversity to support the secure communication as illustrated in Figure 1. Naturally, we are interested in the beamforming strategy and power allocation to maximize the achievable sum secrecy rate. However, the corresponding problem is equivalent to solve a product of three correlated generalized Rayleigh quotients problem and difficult to solve in general. Because of the openness of wireless medium, the information rate leakage to the eavesdropper cannot be canceled perfectly. To some extent, ‘almost perfect secrecy’, where the rate leakage to the eavesdropper is limited, is more interesting from the practical point of view. In this case, we concern ourself mainly the achievable rate region for general case where the rate at the eavesdropper is regarded as the measurement of secrecy level. Two beamforming approaches, optimal beamforming and null space beamforming, are applied to investigate the achievable rate region with total power constraint and the rate constraint at the eavesdropper, which can be obtained by solving a sequence of the weighted sum inverse‐signal‐to‐noise‐ratio minimization (WSISM) problem. Because of the non‐convexity of WSISM problem, an alternating iteration algorithm is proposed to optimize the relay beamforming vector and two sources' transmit power, where two subproblems need to be solved in each iteration. Meanwhile, we provide the convergence analysis of proposed algorithm. Through the numerical simulations, we verify the effectiveness of proposed algorithm. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Transmission scheduling in a multi‐channel wireless network with bidirectional relaying links

Using network coding in a wireless network can potentially improve the network throughput. On the other hand, it increases the complexity of resource allocations as the quality of one transmission is affected by the link conditions of the transmitter to multiple receivers. In this work, we study time slot scheduling and channel allocations jointly for a network with bidirectional relaying links, where the two end nodes of each link can exchange data through a relay node. Two scenarios are considered when the relay node forwards packets to the end nodes. In the first scenario, the relay node always forwards network‐coded packets to both end nodes simultaneously; in the second scenario, the relay node opportunistically uses network coding for two‐way relaying and traditional one‐way relaying. For each scenario, an optimization problem is first formulated for maximizing the total network throughput. The optimum scheduling is not causal because it requires future information of channel conditions. We then propose heuristic scheduling schemes. The slot‐based scheduling maximizes the total transmission rate of all the nodes at each time slot, and the node‐based scheduling schedules transmissions based on achievable transmission rates of individual nodes at different channels. The node‐based one has lower complexity than the slot‐based one. Our results indicate that although the node‐based scheduling achieves slightly lower throughput than the slot‐based one, both the proposed scheduling schemes are very effective in the sense that the difference between their throughput and the optimum scheduling is relatively small in different network settings. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Beamforming for inter‐relay interference reduction in MIMO‐aided two‐path successive relaying

To effectively reduce the inter‐relay interference (IRI) in two‐path successive relaying, two beamforming schemes are proposed in this paper, utilizing multiple‐antenna relay nodes. Specifically, the two cooperation nodes perform receive combining of the source signal and transmit beamforming of the relayed signal alternately in the successive relaying process. As a result, the IRI between them can be effectively suppressed, thanks to the additional degree of freedom provided by the multiple‐input multiple‐output inter‐relay channel. In the first beamforming scheme, the source‐to‐destination signal‐to‐interference‐plus‐noise ratios (SINR) of separate paths are maximized with approximation, leading to a minimum variance distortionless response beamformer under the high SINR condition. To further improve the system performance, noting that the received SINRs of the two paths have impact on each other due to the mutual coupling of the beamformers, the sum of mean squared errors from these two transmission paths is minimized in the second scheme. Based on this performance criterion, a suboptimal beamformer design is developed numerically through cyclic minimization of the sum of mean squared error cost function. Simulation results demonstrate the superiority of both proposed beamforming schemes in terms of symbol error rate and the achievable system rate, in particular, at high IRI levels. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Nelder‐Mead–based power optimization for secrecy enhancement in amplify‐and‐forward cooperative relay networks

Cooperative communication based on relaying nodes has been considered as a promising technique to increase the physical layer security (PLS) performance in wireless communications. In this paper, an optimal power allocation (OPA) scheme based on Nelder‐Mead (NM) algorithm is proposed for improving the secrecy rate of amplify‐and‐forward (AF) cooperative relay networks employing cooperative jamming (CJ) scheme. The proposed hybrid jamming scheme allows the source and selected relay to transmit the jamming signal along with the information to confound the eavesdropper. The path selection probability of ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm is used for selecting the relay for transmission. The performance based on secrecy rate is evaluated for “n” trusted relays distributed dispersedly between the source and destination. Gradient‐based optimization and three‐dimensional exhaustive search methods are used as benchmark schemes for comparison of the proposed power optimization algorithm. The secrecy performance is also compared with conventional AF scheme and CJ scheme without power optimization (EPA). The impact of single and multiple relays on secrecy performance is also evaluated. Numerical results reveal that, compared with the gradient method and exhaustive search algorithm, the proposed power allocation strategy achieves optimal performance. Also, the derived OPA results show a significantly higher secrecy rate than the EPA strategy for both CJ and AF schemes.     

Network‐coded MIMO‐NOMA systems with FEC codes in two‐way relay networks

This paper assumes two users and a two‐way relay network with the combination of 2×2 multi‐input multi‐output (MIMO) and nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA). To achieve network reliability without sacrificing network throughput, network‐coded MIMO‐NOMA schemes with convolutional, Reed‐Solomon (RS), and turbo codes are applied. Messages from two users at the relay node are network‐coded and combined in NOMA scheme. Interleaved differential encoding with redundancy (R‐RIDE) scheme is proposed together with MIMO‐NOMA system. Quadrature phase‐shift keying (QPSK) modulation technique is used. Bit error rate (BER) versus signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) (dB) and average mutual information (AMI) (bps/Hz) versus SNR (dB) in NOMA and MIMO‐NOMA schemes are evaluated and presented. From the simulated results, the combination of MIMO‐NOMA system with the proposed R‐RIDE‐Turbo network‐coded scheme in two‐way relay networks has better BER and higher AMI performance than conventional coded NOMA system. Furthermore, R‐RIDE‐Turbo scheme in MIMO‐NOMA system outperforms the other coded schemes in both MIMO‐NOMA and NOMA systems.     

Cooperative quadrature physical layer network coding in wireless relay networks

This paper proposes a cooperative quadrature physical layer network coding (CQPNC) scheme for a dual‐hop cooperative relay network, which consists of two source nodes, one relay node and one destination node. All nodes in the network have one antenna, and the two source nodes transmit their signals modulated with quadrature carriers. In this paper, a cooperative quadrature physical layer network coded decode‐and‐forward (DF) relay protocol (CQPNC‐DF) is proposed to transmit the composite information from the two source nodes via the relay node to the destination node simultaneously to reduce the number of time slots required for a transmission. The proposed CQPNC‐DF relay protocol is compared with time‐division multiple‐access amplify‐and‐forward (TDMA‐AF), TDMA‐DF, cooperative network coded DF (CNC‐DF) and cooperative analog network coded AF (CANC‐AF) relay protocols to demonstrate its effectiveness in terms of bit error rate (BER) and system throughput under different propagation conditions. The simulation results reveal that the proposed CQPNC‐DF relay protocol can significantly improve the network performance. Compared with two TDMA schemes and CNC‐DF, the proposal can provide up to 100% and 50% throughput gains, respectively. Moreover, no matter what the scene, the proposed scheme always has the lowest BER in the low SNR region. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A coalitional game‐based relay load balancing and power allocation scheme in decode‐and‐forward cellular relay networks

In this paper, a game theoretic relay load balancing and power allocation scheme is proposed for downlink transmission in a decode‐and‐forward orthogonal frequency division multiple access‐based cellular relay network. A system with a base station communicating with multiple users via multiple relays is considered. The relays have limited power, which must be divided among the users they support. In traditional scheme, each relay simply divides its transmit power equally among all its users. Moreover, each user selects the relay with the highest channel gain. In this work, we do not apply the traditional relay scheme. It is because the users are distributed randomly, and by applying the traditional relay selection scheme, it may happen that some relays have more users connected to them than other relays, which results in having unbalanced load among the relays. In order to avoid performance degradation, achieve relay load balancing, and maximize the total data rate of the network, a game theoretic approach is proposed, which efficiently assigns the users to relays. The power of each relay is wisely distributed among users by the efficient power allocation scheme. Simulation results indicate that the proposed game‐based scheme can considerably improve the average sum‐spectral efficiency. Moreover, it shows that by applying the game, users who can connect to uncongested relays join them as opposed to connecting to congested relays. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An efficient communication relay placement algorithm for content‐centric wireless mesh networks

In this paper, we investigate a communication relay placement problem to optimize the network throughput in a content‐centric wireless mesh networks (WMN), in which the WMN is enhanced by including a small set of communication relays and a subset of wireless mesh routers serving as storage nodes. Specifically, we first define the communication relay placement problem in content‐centric WMNs. We then model the problem as a mathematical programming and propose a linear programming approach for calculating the achievable network throughput when the positions of communication relays are fixed. Next, to optimally placing the communication relays, we formulate an integer linear programming problem and we develop an efficient near‐optimal approximation algorithm based on linear programming relaxation. Finally, extensive simulation experiments have been conducted, and the results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Large intelligent surfaces: Random waypoint mobility and two‐way relaying

In this paper, we first investigate the effect of mobility via the random waypoint (RWP) mobility model on the performance of nonaccess point (non‐AP) or AP large intelligent surfaces (LISs). The theoretical average bit error probability (ABEP) for each of these LISs under mobility is formulated. The presented formulation is complicated to solve; hence, the trapezoidal approximation is employed. Simulation results serve to validate the ABEP. Second, we investigate a two‐way relaying (TWR) network assisted by non‐AP or AP LISs. A network with two source/destination nodes with a single relay node employing decode‐and‐forward placed between these nodes is considered. The transmission interval is broken into two transmission phases. In the first phase, the two source nodes transmit information blocks to the relay node assisted by LISs. On receiving these information blocks, the relay node decodes the two information blocks and encodes these into a single information block via the use of network coding. In the second phase, the relay node forwards the network‐coded information block to the destination nodes assisted by LISs, where the intended information block is decoded via network coding. The theoretical ABEP is formulated for the proposed non‐AP and AP LIS‐assisted TWR schemes and is validated by simulation results. RWP mobility is also demonstrated for the proposed TWR schemes.     

Game‐theoretic modeling and analysis of relay selection in cooperative wireless networks

In this paper, distributed single relay selection in cooperative wireless networks is modeled as a Chinese restaurant game (CRG). Specifically, the CRG is used to model strategic relay selection decisions of source nodes, taking into account negative network externality due to the potential sharing of relay nodes among source nodes. Two cases are studied as follows: (i) perfect relay transmit power (RTP) knowledge and (ii) imperfect RTP knowledge. Under the first case, a distributed relay selection algorithm is proposed and shown to converge to a Nash equilibrium grouping. Under the second case, a reinforcement learning algorithm is proposed and combined with the distributed relay selection algorithm to allow network nodes to select rate‐maximizing relays. Simulation results verify the efficiency of the proposed distributed relay selection algorithm when compared with other relay selection schemes and demonstrate that it yields a network sum‐rate that is comparable with that of centralized relay selection. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Differential modulation for asynchronous two‐way relay systems over frequency‐selective fading channels

We propose two schemes for asynchronous multi‐relay two‐way relay (MR‐TWR) systems in which neither the users nor the relays know the channel state information. In an MR‐TWR system, two users exchange their messages with the help of N_R relays. Most of the existing works on MR‐TWR systems based on differential modulation assume perfect symbol‐level synchronization between all communicating nodes. However, this assumption is not valid in many practical systems, which makes the design of differentially modulated schemes more challenging. Therefore, we design differential modulation schemes that can tolerate timing misalignment under frequency‐selective fading. We investigate the performance of the proposed schemes in terms of either probability of bit error or pairwise error probability. Through numerical examples, we show that the proposed schemes outperform existing competing solutions in the literature, especially for high signal‐to‐noise ratio values. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Secure Connectivity Probability of Multi‐hop Clustered Randomize‐and‐Forward Networks

This work investigates secure cluster‐aided multi‐hop randomize‐and‐forward networks. We present a hop‐by‐hop multi‐hop transmission scheme with relay selection, which evaluates for each cluster the relays that can securely receive the message. We propose an analytical model to derive the secure connectivity probability (SCP) of the hop‐by‐hop transmission scheme. For comparison, we also analyze SCPs of traditional end‐to‐end transmission schemes with two relay‐selection policies. We perform simulations, and our analytical results verify that the proposed hop‐by‐hop scheme is superior to end‐to‐end schemes, especially with a large number of hops or high eavesdropper channel quality. Numerical results also show that the proposed hop‐by‐hop scheme achieves near‐optimal performance in terms of the SCP.     

Network coding‐based channel quality indicator reporting for two‐way multi‐relay networks

This paper considers channel quality indicator (CQI) reporting for data exchange in a two‐way multi‐relay network. We first propose an efficient CQI reporting scheme based on network coding, where two terminals are allowed to simultaneously estimate the CQI of the distant terminal‐relay link without suffering from additional overhead. In addition, the transmission time for CQI feedback at the relays is reduced by half while the increase in complexity and the loss of performance are negligible. This results in a system throughput improvement of 16.7% with our proposed CQI reporting. Upper and lower bounds of the mean square error (MSE) of the estimated CQI are derived to study performance behaviour of our proposed scheme. It is found that the MSE of the estimated CQI increases proportionally with the square of the cardinality of CQI level sets although an increased number of CQI levels would eventually lead to a higher data rate transmission. On the basis of the derived bounds, a low‐complexity relay selection (RS) scheme is then proposed. Simulation results show that, in comparison with optimal methods, our suboptimal bound‐based RS scheme achieves satisfactory performance while reducing the complexity at least three times in case of large number of relays. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A two‐hop equalize‐and‐forward relay scheme in OFDM‐based wireless networks over multipath channels

Relay communications have attracted increasing research attentions as a cost‐effective technique to improve spatial diversity, service coverage, and energy efficiency in wireless networks. However, existing relay schemes (e.g., amplify‐and‐forward and decode‐and‐forward (DF) schemes) still face several major challenges, particularly the accumulation of multipath channels effect in AF and long processing latency in DF. To address these issues, we propose a novel equalize‐and‐forward (EF) relay scheme to enhance the retransmission reliability while maintaining low processing delay at the relay node. In particular, the proposed EF relay estimates and equalizes the channel between source and relay to eliminate the channel accumulation effect without signal regeneration. To further reduce the relay processing time, the channel estimation and equalization in the proposed EF design are performed in parallel. The proposed equalization is realized by presetting the equalizer coefficients with the current channel response that is predicted in parallel using multiple past channel responses. Numerical results show that the proposed EF relay scheme can achieve comparable symbol error rate performance as the DF relay with much less relay latency. In addition, the EF relay exhibits low outage probability at the same data rate as compared with traditional amplify‐and‐forward and DF schemes. schemes. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd     

SER‐Based Relay Selection for Two‐Way Relaying with Physical Layer Network Coding

To enhance the symbol error rate (SER) performance of the two‐way relay channels with physical layer network coding, this letter proposes a relay selection scheme, in which the relay with the maximal minimum distance between different points in its constellation among all relays is selected to assist two‐way transmissions. We give the closed‐form expression of minimum distance for binary phase‐shift keying and quadrature phase‐shift keying. Additionally, we design a low‐complexity method for higher‐order modulations based on look‐up tables. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme improves the SER performance for two‐way relay networks.     

On the capacity of the single source multiple relay single destination mesh network

In this paper, we derive the information theoretic capacity of a special class of mesh networks. A mesh network is a heterogeneous wireless network in which the transmission among power limited nodes is assisted by powerful relays, which use the same wireless medium. We investigate the mesh network when there is one source, one destination, and multiple relays, which we call the single source multiple relay single destination (SSMRSD) mesh network. We derive the asymptotic capacity of the SSMRSD mesh network when the relay powers grow to infinity. Our approach is as follows. We first look at an upper bound on the information theoretic capacity of these networks in a Gaussian setting. We then show that this bound is achievable asymptotically using the compress-and-forward strategy for the multiple relay channel. We also perform numerical computations for the case when the relays have finite powers. We observe that even when the relay power is only a few times larger than the source power, the compress-and-forward rate gets close to the capacity. The results indicate the value of cooperation in wireless mesh networks. The capacity characterization quantifies how the relays can cooperate, using the compress-and-forward strategy, to either conserve node energy or to increase transmission rate.     

General switch‐and‐examine relaying for demodulate‐and‐forward cooperative diversity

Two new demodulate‐and‐forward schemes of multi‐relay cooperative diversity with switch‐and‐examine relaying (SER) are analyzed. To reduce relay usage and enhance bandwidth efficiency, the two new cooperative diversity schemes employ a switch‐based relay selection. The proposed schemes consume less communication resource than regular relaying schemes, such as the selection combining (SC) or maximal ratio combining (MRC) schemes that always use all relays, and also achieve better performance than distributed switch‐and‐stay schemes. In the first scheme, the decision statistic for relay usage and selection is based on the signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR). In the second scheme, the log‐likelihood ratio (LLR) of received signals is used for the decision of relay usage and selection. With the two SER schemes, the bit error probability (BEP) of binary phase shift keying (BPSK) and the average number of used paths are derived and expressed in closed‐form for the independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) Rayleigh fading channels. Numerical and simulation results are presented for performance illustrations. According to the numerical results, the LLR‐based SER not only achieves a lower BEP but also consumes less relay resource than the SNR‐based SER. Furthermore, the LLR‐based SER scheme even outperforms the corresponding SNR‐based SC scheme for a range of average SNR. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Distributed simultaneous wireless information and power transfer in multiuser amplify‐and‐forward ad hoc wireless networks

This paper studies the problem of stable node matching for distributed simultaneous wireless information and power transfer in multiuser amplify‐and‐forward ad hoc wireless networks. Particularly, each source node aims to be paired with another node that takes the role of an amplify‐and‐forward relay to forward its signal to the destination, such that the achievable rate is improved, in return of some payment made to the relaying node. Each relaying node splits its received signal from its respective source into two parts: one for information processing and the other for energy harvesting. In turn, a matching‐theoretic solution based on the one‐to‐one stable marriage matching game is studied, and a distributed polynomial‐time complexity algorithm is proposed to pair each source node with its best potential relaying node based on the power‐splitting ratios, such that their utilities or payments are maximized while achieving network stability. For comparison purposes, an algorithm to enumerate all possible stable matchings is also devised to study the impact of different matchings on the source and relay utilities. Simulation results are presented to validate the proposed matching algorithm and illustrate that it yields sum‐utility and sum‐payment that are closely comparable to those of centralized power allocation and node pairing, with the added merits of low complexity, truth telling, and network stability.