Antenna Selection, Diversity Coding and Spatial Multiplexing in Cooperative Wireless Networks

We propose novel antenna selection and link adaptive space- time modulation algorithms to support cooperative wireless networks composed of access points and user devices with multi-antenna elements. Well-known point-to-point multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna selection and link adaptation algorithms are extended, with slight modifications, to be applicable over a cooperative wireless network architecture; in which multiple transmitters are simultaneously communicating with a destination terminal. For these algorithms, a criterion based on the minimum Euclidean distance metric is used to select antennas and spatial modes (cooperative diversity and cooperative multiplexing) following the estimation of the instantaneous channel state and its feedback over a low-bandwidth feedback channel. Finally, we will present numerical results to empirically validate that our cooperative antenna selection and link adaptation algorithms yield almost equivalent performance to that achieved by MIMO antenna selection and link adaptation algorithms.