BER performance of regenerative multi-antenna cooperative relay network in Rayleigh fading channel

BER performance of cooperative relay network, employing infrastructure based fixed relays having multiple antennas has been investigated. Closed form expression for average BER has been derived, when destination is assumed to perform selection combining of the signals, received from direct path and through relay path. BER expressions are derived for both the cases of selection and maximum ratio combining at the relay terminal. The effect of relay placement on the system performance has also been studied under different path loss conditions.