Multimedia SDR-based Cooperative Communication

Wireless communication systems are challenged to attain the demands of multimedia applications for high data rates and power efficiency. However, multipath fading affects the wireless channel which may cause degradation of the system performance. Cooperative communication emerged as an effective diversity technique to resist the multipath fading and to enhance the system performance. In this paper, an improved Signal to Noise Ratio combining (improved SNRC) is proposed. The proposed testbed of cooperative communication system is based on using NI USRP 2920 devices, single board computer (ODROID XU4), and open source software (GNU Radio) with FFmpeg which is a complete open source multimedia solution. The implemented experiments include voice communications and video streaming using GMSK modulation transmission to exploit cooperation benefits for multimedia communication. The relay terminal utilizes two different cooperative relaying techniques (Amplify and Forward (AF) and Selective Decode and Forward (SDF)). Performance analysis of the improved Signal to Noise Ratio combining (improved SNRC) is evaluated in comparison with the Equal Ratio Combining (ERC) in terms of bit error rate (BER) for voice communication and frame error rate (FER) for video streaming. The experimental results declare that improved SNRC outperforms ERC.