Two-path or successive relaying has recently emerged as a promising cooperative communication protocol to improve spectral efficiency in half-duplex relaying networks. In this paper, we consider decode-and-forward (DF) version of the two-path relaying protocol. We analyze the fundamental performance of this protocol in terms of the diversity-multiplexing tradeoff (DMT). We first derive the DMT for this protocol, where perfect decoding at the relays is assumed, and show that it approaches the 3 x 1 multiple-input single-output (MISO) DMT. We then remove the assumption of perfect decoding at the relays and derive the closed-form expression of the achievable DMT based on the relative distances between nodes. Specifically, we found that for sufficiently long transmission length, if the average source-relay SNR is at least 2.5 times (measured in dB) of other links, the 3 x 1 MISO DMT is achieved. Successive interference cancellation at the relays is also proposed to further improve the performance of the DMT.

In this paper, an amplify-and-forward (AF) two-path half-duplex relaying scheme is considered in which one of the relays additionally performs inter-relay interference cancellation. We first generalize lower bounds for the diversity-multiplexing tradeoff (DMT) of an arbitrary block lower triangular channel matrix. We then characterize the diversity-multiplexing tradeoff for the AF two-path relaying scheme and show that the DMT achieves the multiple-input single-output (MISO) upper bound. The analysis also demonstrates that, with a careful choice of the coding strategy, the DMT of this scheme is achievable for finite codeword lengths. We then propose using an equivalent linear space time code at the source, which does not require any form of channel state information, as a simple and effective coding strategy to achieve the full DMT of the scheme. From the DMT perspective, the proposed AF two-path relaying with the equivalent linear space time coding outperforms existing schemes. Our analysis is then extended to the slotted-amplify-and-forward (SAF) scheme with multiple relays, where we provide a stronger result by deriving the DMT while taking into account inter-relay interference.

In this paper, we consider a network consisting of one source, one destination and two relays, under a half duplex constraint. We analyze an amplify-and-forward (AF) two-path relaying scheme where one of the relays additionally performs inter-relay interference cancellation. With this inter-relay self interference cancellation, we show that degradation in performance can be significantly reduced when inter-relay channel gain increases. By treating the AF two-path relaying as an equivalent MIMO space time code, we derive an upper bound for the pairwise error probability (PEP) of this system. Previous works indicate that only a diversity order of two can be achieved even though physically there are three possibly independent spatial paths to the destination. From our analysis of the PEP, we analytically prove and identify the reason to the limited diversity order of two. We then propose a simple but novel precoding scheme which allows the system to achieve a full diversity order of three while maintaining the spectral efficiency gain of the two-path relaying protocol. A robust precoding design to achieve full diversity order with high coding gain is also proposed.

In this paper, we analyze a full rate cooperative communication system using amplify-and-forward (AF) two-path relaying scheme with inter-relay interference cancellation at the relay. By treating AF two-path relaying as an equivalent MIMO system, we derive the pairwise error probability (PEP) of this system. Given one source node, two half duplex relay nodes, and one destination node, all equipped with single antenna, our theoretical analysis and simulation results show that diversity order of 2 can be achieved by this system. Furthermore, with inter-relay interference cancellation, degradation in performance can also be significantly reduced when inter-relay channel gain increases. Our analysis also shows that diversity order of the system will not be affected by the magnitude of this inter-relay channel gain.