Objectives:

• Scalable adaptive communication within groups of relay nodes
• Reconcile simplicity of SISO systems and performance power of MIMO systems
• Consideration of total energy (transmit and chip energy)

Work Tasks (currently):

• Design and optimization of inter-relay cooperation (IRC)
• Performance evaluation of distributed STBC with link adaptation
• Energy model construction for the proposed IRC schemes

The application of cooperative strategies in wireless networks offers several advantages like improved performance, increased system throughput, and coverage extension. To this end, the source destination link is expanded by additional transceivers in the link, e.g., mobile terminals, relays, or sensor nodes. By clustering several nodes virtual antenna arrays are constructed and coding and signal processing approaches known from multiple antenna systems can be applied in principle to these distributed systems. Depending on the allowed amount of cooperation between the nodes within a cluster different reception and transmission approaches can be implemented. In this project, we aim at the investigation of relay networks with single and multiple antenna relays, adapted distributed signal processing approaches, and different levels of cooperation within the clusters and between the clusters. The focus lies on implementation aspects in the physical layer and corresponding energy consumption considerations. The latter aspect is especially important for wireless sensor networks due to the battery power restrictions per node.

This project is funded within the DFG-Schwerpunktprogramm 1397 COIN (Communication in Interference Limited Networks).

Details