Decode and Forward Cooperative Diversity for Modified SV Model Based UWB Communication System

Cooperative wireless networks have emerged as a major technology for future communication systems because cooperation in ad-hoc networks can save limited network resources. Cooperative techniques are the means to adopt the diversity, which is inherent in a wireless medium. While ultra-wideband (UWB) offers high information rates for wireless communication and sensor networks, the EIRP limits on UWB devices severely affects its coverage radius. This paper aims to investigate the possible improvement of a cooperative system, using decode and forward (DAF) protocol. The proposed DAF scheme along with Amplify-and-Forward (AAF) cooperative protocol for modified SV model based UWB channel is examined to determine the BER performance. Different combining methods are used and their performances for UWB system are analyzed. The result indicates that DAF provides satisfactory performance over direct link transmission. Also error detection mechanism at the realy can provide improved performance for both MRC and ERC, in case of DAF protocol.