Performance of single-relay cooperative ARQ retransmission strategies

In cooperative automatic repeat request (C-ARQ) protocols, the retransmission process between a pair of nodes can be assisted by a relay node. We investigate the performance of C-ARQ algorithms in cellular access networks, where the use of relays is a promising strategy for future evolutions. By means of Markov analysis and simulation we show that the implementation of acknowledgment signals from the relays and the retransmission policy at the base station have a notable impact on the throughput of the system.