Average BER analysis for binary signallings in decode-and-forward dissimilar cooperative diversity networks

In this letter, the average bit-error rate (BER) performance is analyzed for uncoded decode-and-forward (DF) cooperative diversity networks. We consider two typical networks: a single-relay cooperative network with the direct source destination link and a two-relay cooperative network with the direct source-destination link, under dissimilar network settings, i.e., the fading channels of different relay branches may have different variances. We first derive a closed-form approximate average BER expression of binary signallings including noncoherent binary frequency shift keying (BFSK), coherent BFSK, and coherent binary phase shift keying (BPSK), for the single relay network. We then generalize our analysis to the two-relay network, and a closed-form approximate average BER expression for binary signallings is derived. We also show that our BER expressions can be considered as generalizations of previously reported results in the literature. Throughout our analysis, only one approximation, so-called the piecewise-linear approximation, is made. Simulation results are in excellent agreement with the theoretical analysis, which validates our proposed BER expressions.