Wireless Network Cocast: Cooperative Communications with Space-Time Network Coding

Abstract

Traditional cooperative communications can greatly improve communication performance. However, transmissions from multiple relay nodes are challenging in practice. Single transmissions using time-division multiple access cause large transmission delay, but simultaneous transmissions from two or more nodes using frequency-division multiple access (FDMA), code-division multiple access (CDMA) or distributed space-time codes are associated with the issues of imperfect frequency and timing synchronization due to the asynchronous nature of cooperation. In this dissertation, we propose a novel concept of wireless network cocast (WNC) and develop its associated space-time network codes (STNCs) to overcome the foretold issues. In WNC networks, each node is allocated a time slot for its transmission and thus the issues of imperfect synchronization are eliminated. To reduce the large transmission delay, each relay node forms a unique signal, a combination of the overheard information, and transmits it to the intended destination. The combining functions at relay nodes form a STNC that ensures full spatial diversity for the transmitted information as in traditional cooperative communications. Various traditional combining techniques are utilized to design the STNCs, including FDMA-like and CDMA-like techniques and transform-based techniques with the use of Hadamard and Vandermonde matrices. However, a major distinction is that the combination of information from different sources happens within a relay node instead of through the air as in traditional cooperative communications. We consider a general case of multiuser relay wireless networks, where user nodes transmit and receive their information to and from a common base node with the assistance from relay nodes. We then apply the STNCs to multiuser cooperative networks, in which the user nodes are also relay nodes helping each other in their transmission.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 21, 2011
Accession Number
ADA632775

Entities

People

  • Hung-quoc D. Lai

Organizations

  • University of Maryland

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Code Division Multiple Access
  • Coding
  • Communication Systems
  • Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductors
  • Computers
  • Decoding
  • Detectors
  • Engineering
  • Frequency
  • Frequency Division Multiple Access
  • Modulation
  • Multiple Access
  • Multiple Input Multiple Output
  • Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
  • Time Division Multiple Access
  • Wireless Communications
  • Wireless Networks

Fields of Study

  • Engineering

Readers

  • Computer Networking
  • Radio communications and signal processing.

Technology Areas

  • Space