A Comparative Study on Performance of Combining Methods for Half-Duplex Three-Node Cooperative Diversity Wireless Network

This paper analysis the performance of the ad-hoc network with a base station, a mobile and a third station acting as a relay. Three combining methods for the amplify-and-forward (af) protocol and the decode-and-forward (DF) protocol are compared. Simulations indicate that the amplify-and-forward (AF) protocol beats the decode-and-forward (DF) protocol under all these three combining methods. To combine the incoming signals the channel quality should be estimated as well as possible, more estimation accuracy requires more resource. A very simple combining method can obtain the performance compared with that by optimal combining methods approximately. This indicates the implementation of cooperative diversity in future wireless network. All these three combining methods for both diversity protocols can achieve the maximum diversity order.