Performance analysis of two hop amplify and forward relay system with transmit antenna selection and maximal-ratio combining over Nakagami-m fading channels

Abstract

In this work, performance of transmit antenna selection / maximal ratio combining in a two hop amplify and forward relay system is analyzed for frequency non-selective and slowly Nakagami-m fading channels when the fading parameters of two hops are different. In the system, tranmit antenna selection at the source and maximal ratio combining at the destination are employed. Source and destination communicate by the help of single relay which is equipped with single transmit and single receive antenna. The relay amplifies and forwards the received signal from the source to the destination. Analytical results are validated by the simulations. According to the results, diversity order of this technique is about minimum of multiplicaiton of fading parameter in the first hop with number of antennas in the source and multiplicaiton of fading parameter in the second hop with number of antennas in the destination. With this technique, error performance of the system is improved significantly.