Performance of non-coherent decode-and-forward relaying over time-varying fading channels

Abstract

Performance analysis of selection combining (SC) for decode-and-forward (DF) relaying in case of general time-varying Rayleigh fading channels is investigated. While auto-regressive (AR) time series model is applied in channels, differential binary phase shift keying (DBPSK) modulation and non-coherent detection at relay and destination are used together. Due to SC scheme, DF relaying and DBPSK modulation no channel side information (CSI) is required to provide average bit-error-rate (BER), which is exactly calculated. Simulation results in different channel scenarios and fading rates, verifies the presented analysis. It is shown that SC is very close to semi-maximum-ratio-combining (semi-MRC) which is difficult to analyze and error floors occur at high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in both methods. The error floor in SC is obtained. 2016 IEEE.