Physical Layer Network Coding in Multipath Channel: Effective Precoding-Based Transmission Scheme

This paper analyzes the performance of the Physical Layer Network Coding (PLNC) approach based on Decode-and-Forward (DF) and operating in multipath fading channel. In actual channel affected by multipath fading the DF method has poor performance since the relay node cannot properly perform data decoding. In addition the decoding at the relay requires the knowledge of the channels involved in the communication with a consequent signaling overhead. In order to overcome these problems this paper proposes an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex (OFDM) system where the pre-emphasis approach is considered jointly with an efficient method of sub-carrier suppression named Blind Subcarrier Suppression (BSS). Simulations results show that BSS achieves high throughput with a Bit Error Probability (BER) near to that of a classical OFDM system in multipath channel.