Variable Channel Threshold-Based Hybrid AF-DF Cooperative Communications with Packet Splitting

Cooperative communications are widely researched as an attractive way to improve wireless communication systems with a small number of antennas and low power consumption. However, forward processing in the relay terminals means to consume the power of relay in other terminals. Therefore, the waste of electricity by forwarding is to be reduced as possible. In this paper, we propose and analyze a new relaying system for three-node hybrid cooperative communication systems, where the relay terminal may choose to transmit message in Amplify-and-Forward (AF) with expansion of channel matrix or Decode-and-Forward (DF) with packet splitting transmission. It is just based on the qualities of the channels in the source-relay and source-destination link. Then, in the proposed system, the decision of forwarding scheme is performed to calculate the threshold based on the equation of the channel capacity. From the simulation results, the proposed system can improve the BER performance and reduce the load of forward processing latency at the relay.