SER performance analysis and optimum power allocation for decode-and-forward cooperation protocol in wireless networks

We derive a closed-form symbol-error-rate (SER) formulation for the cooperation system with PSK and QAM signals. Moreover, two SER upper bounds are established to show the asymptotic performance of the cooperation protocol, in which one of them is tight at a high signal-to-noise ratio. Based on the SER performance analysis, we also determine the optimum power allocation for the cooperation systems. It turns out that an equal power strategy is, in general, not optimum in cooperation communications, and the optimum power allocation depends on the channel link quality. An interesting result is that, in the case that all channel links are available, the optimum power allocation does not depend on the direct link between source and destination, it depends only on the channel links related to the relay. Extensive simulations are performed to validate the theoretical results.