Error control code combining techniques in cluster-based cooperative wireless networks

In this paper, we introduce a novel link layer cooperation technique in noisy wireless networks to improve overall system throughput and reliability, and to reduce the cost of retransmission and energy consumption. Under a cluster-based network design, code combining is used together with FEC to improve the link layer reliability. This approach is different from how code combining is used in the conventional hybrid ARQ, which is in a sequential way. The analytical results and the simulations show that with the cooperation of nodes in a clustering network, the link reliability is greatly improved with the same power consumption. Equivalently, this can be viewed as the same link performance with a lower transmission power and lower interference.