A Survey on Cooperative Diversity for Wireless Networks

Diversity, i.e. transmitting multiple replicas of a signal, may mitigate fading in wireless networks. Among other diversity techniques, the space diversity of multi-antenna systems is particularly interesting since it can complement other forms of diversity. The recent cooperative diversity paradigm brings the advantages of multi-antenna space diversity to single antenna networked devices, which, through cooperation and antenna sharing, form virtual antenna arrays. However, cooperative diversity is a complex technique and research on this topic is still in its early stages. This paper aims at providing a general survey on the theoretical framework; and the physical and medium access control proposals in the literature.