A Cooperative MARC Scheme Using Analogue Network Coding to Achieve Second-Order Diversity

A multiple access relay channel (MARC) is considered in which an analogue-like network coding is implemented in the relay node. This analogue coding is a simple addition of the received signals at the relay node. Using “nulling detection” structure employed in V-BLAST receiver, we propose a detection scheme in the destination which is able to provide a diversity order of two for all users. We analytically evaluate the performance of our proposed scheme for the MARC with two users where tight upper bounds for both uncoded and Convolutionally coded transmission blocks are provided. We verify our analytical evaluations by simulations and compare the results with those of noncooperative transmission and Alamouti’s scheme for the same power and rate transmission. Our results indicate that while our proposed scheme shows a comparable performance compared to the Alamouti’s scheme, it substantially outperforms the non-cooperate transmission. Index Terms Cooperative communication, MARC, analogue network coding, V-BLAST detection, Alamouti space-time coding