A performance comparison of some combining schemes for finite-buffer ARQ systems in a Rayleigh-fading channel

The throughput performance of a finite-buffer point-to-point ARQ system using multiple-copy decoding (MCD) is analyzed and compared for several hard-decision MCD techniques. Results are presented for a Rayleigh-fading channel model. Although MCD will, in general, improve the performance of an ARQ protocol, there are many possible MCD schemes. Selection of the 'best' scheme has to take into account cost and performance factors. The authors present a general survey of hard-decision MCD schemes that are likely to be considered in practice. A comparison of the relative merits of the different schemes is used to provide some practical guidelines to assist in the selection of the appropriate MCD scheme.<
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