João Luiz Rebelatto

Harvest-Then-Cooperate: Wireless-Powered Cooperative Communications

In this paper, we consider a wireless-powered cooperative communication network consisting of one hybrid access-point (AP), one source, and one relay. In contrast to conventional cooperative networks, the source and relay in the considered network have no embedded energy supply. They need to rely on the energy harvested from the signals broadcasted by the AP for their cooperative information transmission. Based on this three-node reference model, we propose a harvest-then-cooperate (HTC) protocol, in which the source and relay harvest energy from the AP in the downlink and work cooperatively in the uplink for the sources information transmission. Considering a delay-limited transmission mode, the approximate closed-form expression for the average throughput of the proposed protocol is derived over Rayleigh fading channels. Subsequently, this analysis is extended to the multi-relay scenario, where the approximate throughput of the HTC protocol with two popular relay selection schemes is derived. The asymptotic analyses for the throughput performance of the considered schemes at high signal-to-noise radio are also provided. All theoretical results are validated by numerical simulations. The impacts of the system parameters, such as time allocation, relay number, and relay position, on the throughput performance are extensively investigated.

Multiuser Cooperative Diversity Through Network Coding Based on Classical Coding Theory

In this paper, we propose and analyze a generalized construction of distributed network codes for a network consisting of M users sending independent information to a common base station through independent block fading channels. The aim is to increase the diversity order of the system without reducing its throughput. The proposed scheme, called generalized dynamic-network codes (GDNC), is a generalization of the dynamic-network codes (DNC) recently proposed by Xiao and Skoglund. The design of the network codes that maximize the diversity order is recognized as equivalent to the design of linear block codes over a nonbinary finite field under the Hamming metric. We prove that adopting a systematic generator matrix of a maximum distance separable block code over a sufficiently large finite field as the network transfer matrix is a sufficient condition for full diversity order under link failure model. The proposed generalization offers a much better tradeoff between rate and diversity order compared to the DNC. An outage probability analysis showing the improved performance is carried out, and computer simulations results are shown to agree with the analytical results.

Time-Switching Uplink Network-Coded Cooperative Communication With Downlink Energy Transfer

In this work, we consider a multiuser cooperative wireless network where the energy-constrained sources have independent information to transmit to a common destination, which is assumed to be externally powered and responsible for transferring energy wirelessly to the sources. The source nodes may cooperate, under either decode-and-forward or network coding-based protocols. Taking into account the fact that the energy harvested by the source nodes is a function of the fading realization of inter-user channels and user-destination channels, we obtain a closed-form approximation for the system outage probability, as well as an approximation for the optimal energy transfer period that minimizes such outage probability. It is also shown that, even though the achievable diversity order is reduced due to wireless energy transfer process, it is very close to the one achieved for a network without energy constraints. Numerical results are also presented to validate the theoretical results.

Generalized distributed network coding based on nonbinary linear block codes for multi-user cooperative communications

In this work, we propose and analyze a generalized construction of distributed network codes for a network consisting of M users sending different information to a common base station through independent block fading channels. The aim is to increase the diversity order of the system without reducing its code rate. The proposed scheme, called generalized dynamic-network codes (GDNC), is a generalization of the dynamic-network codes (DNC) recently proposed by Xiao and Skoglund. The design of the network codes that maximizes the diversity order is recognized as equivalent to the design of linear block codes over a nonbinary finite field under the Hamming metric. The proposed scheme offers a much better tradeoff between rate and diversity order. An outage probability analysis showing the improved performance is carried out, and computer simulations results are shown to agree with the analytical results.

Energy Efficiency-Spectral Efficiency Trade-Off of Transmit Antenna Selection

We investigate the energy efficiency-spectral efficiency (EE-SE) trade-off of transmit antenna selection/maximum ratio combining (TAS) scheme. A realistic power consumption model (PCM) is considered, and it is shown that using TAS can provide significant energy savings when compared to multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) in the low to medium SE region, regardless the number of antennas, as well as outperform transmit beamforming scheme (MRT) for the entire SE range. For a fixed number of receive antennas, our results also show that the EE gain of TAS over MIMO becomes even greater as the number of transmit antennas increases. The optimal value of SE that maximizes the EE is obtained analytically, and confirmed by numerical results. Moreover, the influence of receiver correlation is also evaluated and it is shown that considering a non-realistic PCM can lead to mistakes when comparing TAS and MIMO.

Cooperative overlay secondary transmissions exploiting primary retransmissions

We introduce an overlay cooperative cognitive radio scheme, in which the secondary network transmits only during the retransmissions of the primary network. The secondary network makes use of multiple relays in order to increase its performance compared to a non-cooperative scenario. Moreover, the secondary operates without harming the performance of the primary network. Different cooperative protocols are employed and associated with hybrid automatic repeat request mechanisms. Our results show that the incremental decode-and-forward technique allows the secondary network to achieve the highest throughput among the considered methods, at the cost of a very small degradation in the performance of the primary network.

Adaptive Distributed Network-Channel Coding

In this work, we propose and analyze a construction of adaptive network codes for a multiple access network under independent block-fading assumption. We aim to increase the system average transmission rate of the recently proposed generalized dynamic-network codes (GDNC) without reducing its diversity order, making use of a small amount of information fed back by the base station. The average rate and the diversity order are obtained analytically, and computer simulations of the diversity order are shown to agree with the analytical results.

Information-Theoretic Location Verification System With Directional Antennas for Vehicular Networks

In this paper, we consider a vehicular network and propose the application of directional antennas to a recently proposed information-theoretic location verification system (LVS), aiming at increasing the system capability in correctly detecting malicious nodes. In the proposed LVS with directional antennas (LVS-DA), we adopt a more realistic dual-slope large-scale fading model that is suitable to vehicular networks. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated analytically for some specific number of directional antennas and confirmed by numerical results, showing that the proposed LVS-DA scheme is capable of considerably increasing the system capability in detecting malicious nodes when compared with other recently proposed schemes, under different scenarios.

Network Coding for Cooperative MIMO Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks

In this paper, we apply nonbinary network coding to a multiple access cooperative vehicular ad hoc network (VANET), where the vehicles have independent information to transmit to a common destination. We consider that all the users in the network are provided with multiple antennas (MIMO), so that the benefits of both space-time codes and cooperative communication are used to increase the network diversity order and consequently provide more reliable communication. A Nakagami-m fading model is considered, aiming to evaluate the reliability of the proposed scheme mainly in scenarios where the channel condition is critical (sub-Rayleigh scenario with m <; 1). The network outage probability is obtained analytically, and confirmed by numerical results.

Energy Efficiency of Network Coded Cooperative Communications in Nakagami-

In this letter, we evaluate the energy efficiency of a wireless network-coded cooperative system where multiple nodes cooperatively transmit their information to a common destination. The energy consumption of the transmission and reception circuits is taken into account. It is shown that network coding can provide significant energy savings compared to direct transmission and traditional cooperation techniques. We consider a Nakagami- m fading model, so that the influence of a line-of-sight is also investigated. The optimal number of users that minimizes the energy consumption is obtained analytically, and confirmed by numerical results. Using this number to organize the nodes in clusters can provide considerable energy savings and decrease the network encoding/decoding complexity.