Performance Analysis of Amplify and Forward Cooperation over Peak-Power Limited Channels

In this paper, we study the instantaneous power distributions of the transmitting signals at the relay in the non-regenerative and regenerative cooperation scenarios with linear modulation under the band-limited scenario. We study the following three relay function scenarios: fixed gain amplify and forward (AF) relay, variable gain AF relay, and decode and forward (DF) relay. Based on the analytical results, we reveal practical limitations of non-regenerative relays when the power amplifier (PA) efficiency is of primary concern.