Cooperative ARQ in Wireless Networks: Protocols Description and Performance Analysis

Cooperative transmission is an efficient technique to realize diversity gain in wireless fading channels via a distributed way. In this paper, we consider a wireless network composed of a source, a relay and a destination terminal. We exploit the limited feedback from the destination and propose three different cooperative ARQ protocols, which combine the incremental relaying and selection relaying protocols. An analysis model to analyze and compare the data link layer packet error rate (PER) of different ARQ protocols in slow fading wireless channel is established. Furthermore, the spatial diversity performances of the various protocols are investigated and it is demonstrated that full spatial diversity (second-order in this case) can be achieved by the three proposed protocols. Simulation results are given, which verify the performance analysis. The tradeoff between performance and implementation complexity of the three protocols is also discussed.