Adjustable multiple relay selection based on steady-state mean square joint error for cooperative communication

In this paper, an adjustable multiple relay selection (MRS) scheme for cooperative communication with amplify-and-forward (AF) relay under frequency selective channels is proposed. In the proposed scheme, the relays are ordered firstly by the steady-state mean square error (MSE), then the relays are sequentially selected out from N relays and the number of cooperating relays is adjusted dynamically according to the steady-state mean square joint error (MSJE). The aim of this work is to dynamically estimate the optimum number No of cooperating relays. Optimum means the minimum number of cooperating relays, No, achieving the minimum level of steady-state MSJE. Numerical results verify the analyses and show that the scheme can adaptively adjust the number of cooperating relays, and outperform conventional relay selection schemes. Hence, the proposed scheme provides better tradeoff between BER performance and spectral efficiency and to save more energy in cooperative wireless networks.