Three Step Cooperative MIMO Relaying

Three Step Cooperative MIMO Relaying
Feasibility And Evaluation Study
CHAFIC NASSIF
Master’s Degree Project

Stockholm, Sweden 2005
Three Step Cooperative MIMO Relaying
Feasibility And Evaluation Study
CHAFIC NASSIF
Master’s Degree Project
March 2005
TRITA–S3–RST–0511
ISSN 1400–9137
ISRN KTH/RST/R--05/11--SE
Radio Communication Systems Laboratory

Department of Signals, Sensors and Systems
Abstract
The Cooperative MIMO Relaying (CMIMOR) System is a relatively new topic

that researches the possibility of benefiting from the capacity gains offered by a
Multiple Input Multiple Output channel despite the physical limitations of the
mobile phones.
This thesis investigates an enhancement to the CMIMOR network that aims
for a reduction of the cost of implementation. The main goal is to study the
feasibility of the proposed Three-Hop CMIMOR Network, and evaluate it with
respect to its original Two-Hop CMIMOR counterpart.
Both systems are presented and a comparison in terms of end to end through-
put reveals that the two-hop system performs better. The problem with the
Three-Hop system appears to be that the resources are not allocated in an op-
timized manner. To improve the performance some modifications are proposed,
and the results prove that the proposed modifications produce increased capac-
ity. The increase in capacity is especially evident when a proper allocation of
bandwidth or a good relay selection criteria are applied, allowing the Three-Hop
CMIMOR network to perform as well (better for some cases) as the Two-HOP
CMIMOR network.
Finally at the end of the study a brief cost analysis reveals that, in addi-
tion to the good performance of the proposed system, the cost with respect to
throughput is less than that of the Two-Hop CMIMOR system.
iii
Acknowledgements
Looking back over the past months that I spent working on my thesis, I realize
that this has been one of the most educational experiences of my life. Not only
did I gain so much knowledge in the field that I was working on, but I also
learned how to manage my work, communicate my ideas to my colleagues, and
above all I learned how to properly conduct a research.
Along the way I accumulated many memories from the day to day working
environment to the sleepless nights spent in the labs. I remember the frustration
of reaching a dead end and the thrill of discovering a new solution. I remember
the weariness from writing a report and the excitement from stumbling over a
great result. All these memories I cherish, but most importantly I remember
the people that I have been in contact with. Many of those people to whom I
owe a large debt of gratitude for being there for me throughout the period of
this thesis.
So I would like to extend my appreciation to them, and I will start off with
my advisor Bogdan Timus whom I thank for all the indispensable advice and
crucial assistance that he has offered me, and for bearing with me when my
time-table got somewhat hectic. I would also like to thank my examiner S. Ben
Slimane for providing positive feedback and expert opinion.
My sincere gratitude goes to my family (Habib, Reine, and Rami Nassif)
back in Lebanon for their continuous moral support and encouragement. A
special thank you also goes to Georges and Rita Khoury for providing me with
a home away from home. I would also like to thank my friends both here and
abroad (especially Nelly Nassar) who have been so warm hearted and supportive,
and I apologize for not mentioning all their names but they know who they are.
Finally I would like to say that I am grateful to the Wireless Systems depart-
ment for providing me with the opportunity to come and study in the beautiful
city of Stockholm and earn my Masters Degree.
v
Contents
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1.1 MIMO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1.2 Virtual Antenna Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2 Problem Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.2.1 Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.2.2 Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2 System Model 9
2.1 System Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.1.1 The Macro BS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.1.2 The Acess Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.1.3 The Mobile Terminal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.1.4 The Relays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.2 The Reference System Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2.1 General Architecture of the 2-hop System . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2.2 Relay Activation Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.2.3 Radio Resource Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2.4 Capacity Calculations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.3 The Three-Hop Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.3.1 General Architecture of the 3-hop System . . . . . . . . . 15
2.3.2 Relay Activation Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.3.3 Radio Resource Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3.4 Capacity Calculations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.4 Modified 3-hop System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.4.1 Varying Number of Active Relays of FT . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.4.2 Varying Bandwidth Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.4.3 Alternate Relay Activation Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3 Simulation Environment 19
3.1 System Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.1.1 Placing the Terminal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.1.2 Placing the Relays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.2 Path Gain Computation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.3 Interference and Noise Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.4 Simulation Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
vii
viii Contents
4 Results 23
4.1 Throughput of the Reference System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.2 Throughput of the Proposed System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.3 Modifications for the Proposed System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.3.1 Varying Number of Active Relays of FT . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.3.2 Varying Bandwidth Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.3.3 Alternate Relay Activation Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . 36
5 Cost Evaluation 41
6 Conclusion 43
7 Suggested Future Work 45

7.1 Propagation Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
7.2 Multi-Cell Topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
7.3 Vary the Density of the Relays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
7.4 Relay Activation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
7.5 Bandwidth Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
7.6 Regenerative Relays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
References 47
A First Hop Analysis 49

A.1 Scenario One . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
A.1.1 Capacity for the First Hop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
A.1.2 Capacity for the Second & Third Hops . . . . . . . . . . . 50
A.2 Scenario Two . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
A.2.1 Capacity for the First Hop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
A.2.2 Capacity for the Second & Third Hops . . . . . . . . . . . 51
A.3 Comparison of the Two Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
B Relay Density Derivation 53

List of Tables
3.1 Table of Simulation Parameters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4.1 Table of densities used within simulation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5.1 Macro BS costs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

5.2 Pico BS costs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
ix
List of Figures
1.1 Diagram of MIMO wireless transmission system. . . . . . . . . . 3

1.2 VAA Scheme suggested by Dohler. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 VAA groups in a Cell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.4 Three-Step Cooperative MIMO Relaying. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.1 Relay Distribution around Terminal with Direct Path from BS. . 11
2.2 Example of Channel Assignment - number of active relays is 4. . 12
2.3 The relays with best gain are activated while the other relays
(faded) are inactive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.4 The Schematic Description of a CMIMOR architecture. . . . . . 13
2.5 The three-hop CMIMOR scenario. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.1 The Terminals are randomly but uniformly generated around the
BS at a distance R. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.1 Normalized throughput of 2-hop system for MT 100m from BS. . 25

4.2 Normalized throughput of 2-hop system for MT 300m (upper
left), 500m (upper right), 700m (lower left), and 900m (lower
right) away from BS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4.3 Normalized throughput of the 2-hop system with respect to vary-
ing density for MT 100m away from BS and number of relays in
the VAA=5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.4 Normalized throughput of the 2-hop system with respect to vary-
ing distance of MT from BS, where number of relays in the
VAA=5 and density=157.2 Relays/km2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.5 Normalized throughput of 3-hop system for MT 100m from BS. . 27
4.6 Normalized throughput of the 3-hop system for MT at 300m (up-
per left), 500m (upper right), 700m (lower left), and 900m (lower
right) away from AP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4.7 Normalized throughput of the first hop, for distance between the
AP and MT equal to 100m (uppermost), 300m (2nd row left),
500m (2nd row right), 700m (3rd row left), and 900m (3rd row
right). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.8 Comparison between the 2-hop and 3-hop normalized system
throughputs for density=157.2 Relays/Km2 where the VAA’s are
composed of 5 relays. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.9 Comparison between the normalized throughput of the first hop
and the combination of second and third hops of the 3-hop system
for density=157.2 Relays/Km2 and MT at 500m away from AP. 31
xi
xii List of Figures
4.10 Normalized throughput of 3-hop system, with varying number of

FT relays, where MT is 100m (uppermost), 300m (2nd row left),
500m (2nd row right), 700m (3rd row left), and 900m (3rd row
right) from BS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.11 Comparison between the normalized throughput of the first hop
and the combination of second and third hops of the 3-hop system
for T=10, density=509.3 Relays/Km2 , and MT at 100m away
from BS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.12 Normalized throughput of the 3-hop system, with improved band-
width allocation for distance between the BS and MT equal to
100m (uppermost), 300m (2nd row left), 500m (2nd row right),
700m (3rd row left), and 900m (3rd row right). . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.13 Comparison between the normalized throughputs of the 2-hop
system and 3-hop modified (Bandwidth Allocation) system. The
number of relays in FT=5, density=75.34 Relays/Km2 , and MT
at 500m away from BS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
system and 3-hop modified (Bandwidth Allocation) system. The
number of relays in FT=5, density=157.2 Relays/Km2 , and MT
at 100m away from BS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.15 Normalized throughput of the 3-hop system with Alternate Relay
Activation Algorithm for distance between the BS and MT equal
to 100m (uppermost), 300m (2nd row left), 500m (2nd row right),
700m (3rd row left), and 900m (3rd row right). . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.16 Comparison between the normalized throughput of the 3-hop un-
modified system and 3-hop modified (Alternate Relay Activa-
tion Algorithm) system. The number of relays in FT=5, den-
sity=75.34 Relays/Km2 , and MT at 500m away from BS. . . . . 38
system and 3-hop modified (Alternate Relay Activation Algo-
rithm) system. The number of relays in FT=5, density=157.2
Relays/Km2 for MT 100m (Upper) and 300m (lower left) away
from AP, and density=75.34 Relays/Km2 for MT at 500m (lower
right) away from BS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
A.1 Comparison between the 1st scenario (upper line) and 2nd sce-
nario (lower line) for x varying from 1 to 43dB. Note the thick
lines represent a bundle of 10 plots each that correspond to values
of R varying from 1 to 10 relays per VAA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
List of Notations
α Attenuation Coefficient
BWhop1 Bandwidth of Hop 1
BWhop2−3 Bandwidth of Hops 2 and 3
BWT Total Bandwidth of the System
Chop1 Capacity of Hop 1
Chop2−3 Capacity of Hops 2 and 3
Co Okumura-Hatta Coefficient
Dsf Correlation Distance of Lognormal Shadow Fading
Gd Distance Based Attenuation Component
Gf f Fast Fading Attenuation Component
Gsf Shadow Fading Attenuation Component
Gtot Overall Power attenuation of the Signal
I Interference
λ Relay Density
No Noise
nrand Normal Distributed Random Variable
NR Number of Active Relays
NT Number of Transmitters
Pmax Maximum Power of a Unit
rµ Average Distance of the Closest Relay to the MT
R Number of Channels between MT and its Relays
σsf Standard Deviation of a Lognormal Shadow Fading Component
T Number of Channels between Transmitter and the Relays
U Uniformly Distributed Variable
xiii
List of Abbreviations
AP Access Point
BS Base Station
CMIMOR Cooperative MIMO Relaying
FDMA Frequency Division Multiple Access
FT First Tier
MIMO Multiple Output Multiple Input
MT Mobile Terminal
RX Reciever Antenna
SISO Single Input Single Output
ST Second Tier
STC Space Time Codes
STTB Space Time Block Codes
STTC Space Time Trellis Codes
TX Transmitter Antenna
VAA Virtual Antenna Array
xv
Chapter 1
Introduction
Wireless communication dates back to the first human that used physical ges-
tures to convey an idea to another human. This concept evolved in parallel with
the evolution of humanity, and its need for more advanced means of interaction.
From smoke signals, beacons, and heliographs (messages by mirrors), to the
present radio, television, and cellular phones; the evolution process has been
drastic. Numerous technological breakthroughs that were thought to be a lux-
ury some time ago have become essential to our everyday life. A very common
phenomenon that endorses the above statement is the massive outbreak of mo-
bile phones around the world today. In Europe, for example, nearly every
individual has his/her own mobile phone.
Originally, voice transmission was the basic idea behind mobile phones, and
then gradually other applications started appearing with the introduction of
‘data transfer’. The possibilities presented by transfering huge amounts of data
were immense; however, there were certain capacity restrictions dictated princi-
pally by limits of physical resources such as the electromagnetic spectrum or the
available power factors [1], and the cost involved in setting up these channels
and maintaining them.
Recently, the advances in technology and coding techniques have somewhat
overcome the physical limitations, through increasing the spectrum efficiency,
and allowed for transfer of data at approximately the channel capacity limits,
yet there exists a need for even higher data rates to accommodate more demand-
ing applications. Towards this end, Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO)
channels were introduced; the idea was to introduce an additional resource, or
extra dimension, namely ‘space’ that provides diversity. These MIMO channels
promised increased capacity provided that solutions could be discovered to by-
pass the mobile terminal’s spatial capacity limitations.
One possible solution was to shift to higher communication frequencies,
which inevitably would result in limiting the transmission range, since the at-
tenuation increases with the carrier frequency [1]. Another solution, which has
recently emerged and is currently under study, is to emulate a MIMO channel
through the concept of Cooperative MIMO Relaying (CMIMOR).
The CMIMOR scheme basically consist of a base station that transmits,
through multiple antennas, to a network of relays, which in turn act as if they
were multiple antennas connected (wirelessly) to one designated receiver. The
details of this plan are elaborated in the next section of this report, but the
1
2 Chapter 1. Introduction
result, according to [2], is a theoretically higher capacity limit for cellular net-
works than the currently achievable one.
The focus of this thesis is to work with the CMIMOR scheme and study
the possibility of implementing it at a lower cost. That is, an adjustment to
the original CMIMOR design is proposed, and the feasibility in terms of the
capacity is evaluated, taking into consideration the radio resources needed for
deployment.
The proposed modification involves replacing the ‘Multiple Antenna Trans-
mitting Macro Base Station’ by a Pico Base Station with a single antenna
element. The Pico Base Station has a shorter range than the Macro Base Sta-
tion [3] which would dictate the presence of more relays and more hops for the
signal. Hence, such a modification is proposed to eliminate the huge cost of the
Macro Base Station at the expense of a possible loss in system capacity.
The next sections of this chapter provide a background of the relevant con-
cepts and define the objectives. Then chapters two and three discuss the system
model and the simulation environment respectively. Chapter four presents the
results of the simulations, and chapter five provides a brief cost analysis. Finally,
the conclusions are drawn in chapter six, and the future work are suggested in
chapter seven.
1.1 Background
This section covers a general overview about Multiple Input Multiple Output
(MIMO) schemes, and Virtual Antenna Arrays (VAA) or Cooperative MIMO
Relays (CMIMOR).
1.1.1 MIMO
Until recently, researchers have focused mainly on improving coding techniques
and devising methods to eliminate interference. Lately, however, the concept of
MIMO has emerged as a possible solution for offering data rates far in excess
of conventional systems [4] through the introduction of the extra dimension of
space.
As defined in [5], and illustrated in Figure 1.1, a MIMO system consists of
a transmitting end and a receiving end both equipped with multiple antenna
elements. The idea behind MIMO is that the signals are sent from the transmit-
ter end (TX) through parallel streams over the same frequency band and time
interval to the receiver end (RX). The receiver then combines the incoming sig-
nals via multiple receiver antennas to form the original data stream. Because
the parallel channels exist over the same frequency and time intervals, high data
rates can be achieved without the need for extra bandwidth [4].
This architecture allows the MIMO system to exploit the multipath scat-
tering found in the environment to achieve significant gain in link capacity.
Consequently, and under the theoretical assumption of uncorrelated fading, if
we consider the rank of the channel coefficient matrix n = minimum (N, M),
where N and M are the number of transmit and receive antennas respectively,
then n parallel channels will be created effectively between (TX) and (RX),
thus increasing the spectral efficiency n times [6]. This translates into a linear
1.1. Background 3
Figure 1.1: Diagram of MIMO wireless transmission system.
increase in capacity relative to the increase in the n number of antennas [7].

It can also be proven, according to [8], that given a full rank matrix, de-
ploying an unequal number of transmitter and receiver elements is a waste of
resources. If the number of transmitters exceeds the number of receivers then
the capacity saturates very fast. On the other hand, if the number of receivers
is greater than the number of transmitters then the capacity increases logarith-
mically. Hence, the only solution is for the elements on both ends to be equal
which as stated above will result in a linear increase of capacity.
To be accurate, it must be noted here that the assumption of a full rank
matrix is only a simplification. In practice it is not so common to have a full
rank matrix nor can a designer of a system control the matrix such that it is
rendered full.
The set of coding schemes that are conventionally implemented at the MIMO
(TX) antennas are called Space Time Codes (STC). These coding schemes pro-
vide both data rate maximization and diversity maximization. There are two
types of STC, the Space Time Trellis Codes (STTC) and the Space Time Block
Codes (STTB). The first type of codes provides a diversity benefit equal to the
number of transmit antennas in addition to a coding gain that depends on the
complexity - i.e. the number of states in the trellis - without any loss in band-
width efficiency. The second type was introduced later on and it provides the
same diversity gain as STTC with minimal coding gain; however, they are much
simpler to decode so they are more popular [5].
For more detailed information about MIMO systems and their architecture
the following references [5], [6] are recommended. It must also be noted that
in this thesis no specific coding shall be considered, since the calculations are
based on Shannon’s capacity calculations that no practical coder can provide
us with.
1.1.2 Virtual Antenna Arrays

The benefits of the MIMO scheme and STC codes are realizable only in the
case when we have an antenna array at both the transmitter and the receiver;
however, the number of antenna elements on a terminal and the fading indepen-
dence between them is limited by the space constraint. To solve this problem
Dohler suggested a scheme called Virtual Antenna Arrays (VAA [8]), which
will be described in this section.
Figure 1.2: VAA Scheme suggested by Dohler.
Figure 1.3: VAA groups in a Cell.
The existing cellular systems are designed so that a Base Station (BS) com-
municates with each Mobile Terminal (MT) individually; hence, the BS has
total control over a cell [1]. In the VAA concept, Dohler suggests that MTs
form a mutually communicating entity that emulates a real MIMO system [8].
To better understand this scheme let us consider the downlink case as an
example. A base station array (refer to Figure 1.2 and Figure 1.3) consisting
of several antenna elements transmits a space time encoded data stream to the
associated mobile terminals which can form several independent VAA groups.
1.2. Problem Definition 5
The entire data stream is received by every MT in the group. Each individual
MT extracts its own information and relays further information to the other
surrounding MTs. The target MT then receives more of its own information
from these surrounding MTs and finally it processes the entire data stream it
has received. The wired links within a traditional receiving antenna array are
thus replaced by wireless links [8].
Of course this concept is easier theorized than physically applied. There are
many issues that remain to be resolved, most obvious of which is the assumption
that MTs are aware of each other and manage to establish intelligent synchro-
nization and data scheduling algorithms amongst one another. Moreover, there
are concerns such as distance estimation, power control, encoding, and data
relaying. Dohler does not provide definitive solutions for these concerns, rather
he suggests possible scenarios. For example he proposes the use of Bluetooth
technology for inter-MT communications while assuming that each MT is able
to process the signal it has received and regenerate it (regenerative relaying)
[2].
Although, as discussed above, the VAA model is in need of many refine-
ments that are outside the scope of my study, it still holds a lot of potential
for providing higher capacity gains than the conventional systems and is worth
looking into.
1.2 Problem Definition

The problem definition and the objectives of the thesis work are stated explic-
itly in this section. The ‘Motivation’ subsection explains the logic of the thesis
topic while the second subsection relays the objectives.
1.2.1 Motivation
Technology has always suffered from trade-offs between cost and efficiency. To
lower the cost one has to sacrifice some efficiency, as long as it is within certain
acceptable limits. This also applies to communication systems; hence, if the
difference between the capacities of two systems is small while the cost reduc-
tion is significant then the use of the system with the lower capacity may be
economically sustainable.
Taking the above into consideration, the thesis being proposed here was initially
formulated according to the following logic:
1. A multi-antenna Macro BS provides good performance but is expensive.

2. A wireless relay (Pico BS) costs much less than a Macro BS and can act
as an access point (transmitter-receiver).
3. A wireless relay doesn’t possess multiple antennas; hence, it cannot benefit
from the advantages offered by the MIMO concept, unless Cooperative
MIMO relaying is employed.
4. Thus, instead of deploying a new Macro BS, an existing wireless relay
could be converted to a Pico BS (using CMIMOR). Then the question
would be if it is possible to achieve approximately the same performance

as is attainable by the Macro BS?
Stated in one sentence, the motivation of this thesis is to: “Explore the pos-
sibility of implementing a three step MIMO communication system and evaluate
its capacity gains with respect to Dohler’s (Two-Hop distributed MIMO Com-
munication) reference system.”
The way to do that is by suggesting a scheme that could reduce the cost of
BSs needed to cover a certain region by replacing some Macro BSs with Pico
BSs and utilizing the concept of cooperative MIMO relaying (VAA).
To better understand this notion, consider a BS that needs to send a signal
to a MT that is out of range. The BS would then send the signal to a wireless
array of relay antennas that are perhaps located on lamp posts (in range). These
relay antennas would then send the message to their neighbouring antennas and
so on in a virtual MIMO channels fashion until the target MT is reached (refer
to Figure 1.4).
Figure 1.4: Three-Step Cooperative MIMO Relaying.
For this study, a relay antenna is transformed into an access point (AP)
which will represent a Pico BS. We shall assume that the signal is transmitted
from this AP and the analysis starts from the first hop until the target MT.
1.2. Problem Definition 7
1.2.2 Objectives
The objectives of this thesis can now be stated explicitly in the following points:
• Evaluate the 3-hop proposed system with respect to the 2-hop reference
system.
• Explore the optimality of the initial 3-hop system settings.
• A brief comparison of the approximate expenses involved in the imple-

mention of both the 2-hop and 3-hop systems.
Chapter 2
System Model
The approach that will be adopted throughout this thesis will focus mainly
on obtaining the maximum end-to-end throughput of the system as stated in
the previous chapter. Therefore the assumptions and parameters of the system
model shall be discussed herein. The system units are presented first. Then
the reference and proposed systems are described consecutively along with the
capacity calculations.
2.1 System Units

There are four system units and they are: the Macro BS, the AP, the MT, and
the Relays. In this section the characteristics of each unit shall be presented
and discussed.
2.1.1 The Macro BS

The Macro BS unit exists only in the 2-hop reference system and is considered
to be placed at the center of the system with the rest of the units distributed
all around it. It is a structure possessing multiple antenna elements that are
used (in this study) for transmitting a signal to the MT and the Relays. The
antennas are assumed to be omni-antennas (0dB gain, to simplify the analy-
sis), which might not be the optimum assumption since the use of directional
antennas might yield better results. The macro base station is assumed to be
mounted on a high location, such as a mast, and therefore has high infrastruc-
ture costs, especially in terms of deployment [3]. The power of the Macro BS is
divided equally over the number of antenna elements and these elements form
a MIMO channel together with both the relays and the MT.
2.1.2 The Acess Point

The AP unit exists only in the 3-hop proposed system. It has only one antenna
element (0dB gain) that is used for transmitting a signal to the first virtual
antenna array composed of regenerative relays. The antenna element of the AP
sends the signal to the regenerative relays via independent orthogonal channels.
9
10 Chapter 2. System Model
This means that the AP is responsible for dividing the signal, distributing it
over the orthogonal channels, and defining which specific part of the signal is
sent by which relay in the first tier of relays. The AP is the unit that substitutes
the Macro BS (of the 2-hop system) but it utilizes much less power (equal to the
power consumed by the individual relays). It is expected to lead to a decrease
in the deployment costs, due to the fact that it is not located on a high mast,
which is the reason for the substitution. It must be noted; however, that the
deployment of the AP affects the type of propagation of each connection, but
this aspect is beyond the scope of the thesis.
2.1.3 The Mobile Terminal

The MT unit represents the final destination of the transmitted signal. This
unit exists in both the reference system and the proposed one. It possesses one
antenna element (0dB gain) for receiving the signal from the Macro BS (or AP
in the 3-hop case) and the surrounding relays. The MT is placed at varying
distances from the BS such that the transmitted signal is influenced by different
power attenuation and noise factors. During the interval of analysis the MT is
assumed to be stationary, and the study is carried out according to snapshots
of the stationary terminal at different positions.
2.1.4 The Relays

The relays are assumed to have the same physical properties as the AP, that is
they are not mounted on a high mast, they consume the same amount of low
power, and they have one omni-directional antenna element. The relays imple-
mented in this thesis can be divided into two types according to functionality:
Regenerative and Non-Regenerative (Transparent). The difference between the
two types of relays is that the regenerative relays receive a signal, process it (de-
code it and then re-encode it) before re-transmitting it, while the transparent
relays simply amplify the received signal before re-transmitting it. In general,
regenerative relaying outperforms the non-regenerative in terms of end-to-end
throughput as proved in [9] for the SISO multi-hop case over flat Rayleigh fad-
ing channels. This improved performance, however, is achieved at the expense
of implementing more complex systems [10], and much costlier ones.
The transparent relays are found around the MT in both the 2-hop and 3-
hop systems (to stay consistent with reference [11]). The regenerative relays,
on the other hand, are only utilized around the AP in the 3-hop case.
The relays are uniformly distributed to form VAAs according to a predefined
activation criteria. The relay density is denoted by λ and is measured as the
number of relays available in one squared kilo meter. To give the reader a more
perceptive idea of what a certain distribution of the relays means, I have related
the density to the average distance of the closest relay to the terminal denoted as
rµ . Thus a certain rµ corresponds to a certain λ through the following formula
(refer to Appendix B for the derivation based on [12]):
p
rµ = 0.5 × 1/λ (2.1)
2.2. The Reference System Model 11
The power of the relays is assumed to be constant and equal for both types.
Each relay has one antenna element (0dB gain) that is used for receiving signals
and transmitting them alternatively. The transparent relays form orthogonal
SISO channels with the MT while the regenerative relays form orthogonal SISO
channels with the AP. In the 3-hop case the regenerative relays and the trans-
parent relays form the MIMO channel.
2.2 The Reference System Model

The reference system is Dohler’s ‘Two-Hop distributed MIMO Communication
System’ [13], which was portrayed earlier in Figure 1.2. It is assumed that there
is one transmitting Macro BS with a fixed number of antennas. The signal is
sent from this BS towards a tier of relays (with a varying number of relays),
that in turn amplify the signal and resend it to the destination terminal. To
model this process, certain assumptions and parameters are presented in this
section in detail, keeping in mind that the description also applies for the second
and third hops of the proposed system - the difference is that the BS antenna
elements are replaced by individual relays.
2.2.1 General Architecture of the 2-hop System

The signal is initially transmitted by the BS antenna elements towards the relays
and the terminal. The terminal receives a direct transmission of the signal from
the BS and an amplified one from the relays around it. Figure 2.1 shows the
topology of the system with one BS and one user terminal surrounded by a
pre-specified density of relays per km2 .
Figure 2.1: Relay Distribution around Terminal with Direct Path from BS.
The relays around the MT are activated according to the criteria discussed in
the next section. After the required number of relays is chosen, each active relay
receives a signal from all the BS antenna elements, amplifies it and resends it
over an independent orthogonal channel to the terminal as shown in Figure 2.2.
Figure 2.2: Example of Channel Assignment - number of active relays is 4.
2.2.2 Relay Activation Criteria

The decision of which relays are to be chosen (activated) is done based on the
channel conditions. For this system it is assumed that the relays with the best
path gain to the terminal are chosen. Of course this method takes for granted
that the relays are able to communicate with each other and the terminal, to
calculate the individual path gains and decide upon the best of them.
Figure 2.3: The relays with best gain are activated while the other relays (faded)
are inactive.
As can be observed in Figure 2.3, the relays that are chosen don’t need to
be the closest to the terminal since both Shadow and Rayleigh fading are taken
into consideration. Moreover, it must be noted that the activated relays may
not have the best path gain from the BS (since the activation criteria is the best
path gain from the terminal). As for the ‘number’ of active relays and their
‘density’, these variables will be regarded as simulation parameters.
2.2. The Reference System Model 13
2.2.3 Radio Resource Allocation

The total available bandwidth of the system is set at a fixed value denoted by
BWT as assumed in the previous work done in [14] and [11]. This bandwidth is
divided equally into 1 + NR channels, where NR represents the number of active
relays. IN other words, only 1/(1 + NR ) of the available bandwidth is used
by the MIMO channel in an amplify-and-forward (non-regenerative) CMIMOR
architecture.
2.2.4 Capacity Calculations

The analysis presented herein is a summary of document [15] which calculates
the capacity expression for a non-regenerative CMIMOR connection. This anal-
ysis applies to both the 2-hop reference system and the combined capacity of the
second and third hops of the the proposed 3-hop system. It is assumed that the
downlink connection is established between a BS with T antenna elements(for
the three hop case the T antenna elements are the T relays of the first VAA),
through a number of R relays, to a target terminal with one antenna element,
as shown in the figure 2.4 (which is extracted from [15]).
Figure 2.4: The Schematic Description of a CMIMOR architecture.
The following capacity calculations are based on two assumptions. The

first assumption is that the channels are Gaussian, i.e. the received signals are
normally distributed. The second assumption is that the channel state matrices
are assumed to be known both by the sender and the receiver. The signal model
for a two hop CMIMOR connection is given by the equations 2.2 and 2.3 and
exemplified in Figure 2.4, where r and y are the signals received by the R relays
and the target MT respectively. x is the signal initially sent by the BS, while n
and m represent the noise vectors. Finally H and K are the channel coefficient
matrices of the MIMO channel and the R orthogonal channels respectively.
r = Hx + n (2.2)
y = AKr + m (2.3)
A is the amplification factor that is multiplied by the signal before the relays
resend it to the MT. The expression for A is depicted below (derivation is found
in [15]):
T
!−1
2 2 Pt X 2
|Aii | = Psend,i · σnn,i + |Hi,t | (2.4)
T t=1
The capacity calculations of the system are based on the mutual information;
thus, the expression for capacity is as follows:
Chop2−3 = max {I (y, x)} where, (2.5)

I (y, x) = h (y) − h (y|x) (2.6)
Computation of the values of h(y) and h(y|x) lead us to the following ex-
pressions:
1 h R
i
h (y) = ln (2Π) · e · det(Cyy ) (2.7)
2
1 h R
i
h (y|x) = ln (2Π) · e · det(Cww ) (2.8)
2
Cww = AKCnn K H AH + Cmm
Hence, after substituting the values above into the equation of I(y, x) and
simplifying, we obtain an expression for Chop2−3 of the following form:
d
1X
Chop2−3 = ln(1 + λB,i ) (2.9)
2 i=1
The capacity is calculated in terms of (Bits/sec/Hz). λB,i is the set of
eigenvalues of matrix B which is calculated to be as follows:
Pt 2 −1
B= · [Aii Kii ]R×R · |H| · [Aii Kii ]TR×R · Cww (2.10)
T
Finally, equation ( 2.9 ) is multiplied by the Bandwidth of the channels to
make it comparable with the calculations of the first hop capacity for the 3-hop
system; hence, the unit of measurment becomes (Bits/sec).
2.3 The Three-Hop Model

The Three-Hop Model is the system that is proposed by this thesis and evaluated
with respect to the reference 2-Hop Model. It can be viewed as an enhancement
to the reference system which means that the description of the reference system
applies to the second and third hops of this system.
2.3. The Three-Hop Model 15
2.3.1 General Architecture of the 3-hop System

The Macro BS and its antenna elements of the reference system are replaced
by the AP and the First Tier (FT) of regenerative relays. The signal is initially
transmitted by the AP towards the FT of relays through independent orthogonal
channels. The reason for choosing to have these links as orthogonal channels
and not let the AP simply broadcast is explained in the Appendix A. The
regenerative relays receive the signal process it and then send it over the MIMO
channel to both the Second Tier (ST) of relays and the MT. The terminal
receives a direct transmission of the signal from the FT relays and an amplified
one from the ST relays around it. Figure 2.5 shows the topology of the system
with one AP, the FT and ST of relays, and one MT surrounded by a pre-specified
density of relays per km2 .
Figure 2.5: The three-hop CMIMOR scenario.
2.3.2 Relay Activation Criteria

The decision of which relays are to be chosen (activated) in the FT and ST
is done as in the case for the 2-hop system, i.e. depending on the channel
conditions. For this system the ST relays with the best path gain to the terminal
are chosen, and similarly the relays of the FT with the best path gain to the AP
are activated. Of course this method is not the optimum and it takes for granted
that the relays are able to communicate with each other and the terminal (or
AP), to calculate the individual path gains and decide upon the best of them.
The activated relays are not necessarily the closest to the terminal since both
Shadow and Rayleigh fading are taken into consideration. As for the ‘number’
of active relays and their ‘density’, these variables will be regarded as simulation
parameters to be discussed in the next chapter.
2.3.3 Radio Resource Allocation

The total available bandwidth of the system is set at a fixed value denoted by
BWT . However, unlike the 2-hop case this bandwidth is divided equally into
1 + NR + NT channels, where NR represents the number of active relays in the
ST, NT represents the number of active relays in the FT, and the remaining
channel represents the MIMO channel.
2.3.4 Capacity Calculations

Knowing that the three-hop system utilizes regenerative relays in the FT, we
can split our capacity analysis into two parts:
• The capacity of the first hop.
• The capacity of the second and third hops combined.
Thus, we could calculate the capacity of the two separate parts and then
compute the total capacity of the proposed system to be the minimum between
the two capacities.
Moreover, the proposed three-hop system resembles the reference system
except for the addition of one extra hop in the beginning. This means that
the capacity calculations for the reference system are the same as the capacity
calculations for the combined second and third hops of the proposed system.
Keeping the above in mind this section of the report calculates only the first
hop capacity, since the capacity for the second and third hops is summarizes in
section 2.2.4.
Hence, from Shanon’s channel limit [16], and as explained in ( [17], p.585), we
can obtain the following formula for the capacity (Bits/sec) of each individual
channel of the first hop:
P × Gt
Ct = W1 × log2 [1 + ] (2.11)
T × No W1
WT
W1 = (2.12)
T +R+1
where,
Ct = the capacity of the channel between the AP and Relay t.

W1 = the bandwidth of the channels of the first hop.
WT = the total bandwidth of the system.
T = the number of channels in the first hop.
R = the number of channels in the third hop.
P = the maximum power transmitted by a relay = cst.
Gt = Gt,dist(d) × Gt,shadow × Gt,Rayleigh
2.4. Modified 3-hop System 17
Thus the expression of the total capacity that could be provided by the
first hop would be limited by the minimum capacity of the multiple channels as
follows:
Chop1 = T × min[Ct ], t=1→T (2.13)

Now that we have the expression for the first hop capacity, the end to end
throughput of the 3-hop system can be expressed as:
Ctotal = minimum{Chop1 , Chops2−3 } (2.14)

Pd
where, Chops2−3 = BWhop2,3 i=1 ln(1 + λB,i ) (Bits/sec).
2.4 Modified 3-hop System

In this section three modifications to the already discussed 3-hop system are
presented. The aim of introducing these modifications is to investigate the pos-
sibility of increasing the total throughput of the system. The first modification
consists of increasing the number of active relays around the AP. The second
modification handles the optimization of the bandwidth distribution over the
channels. The third, and last modification, implements a new algorithm for
activating relays around the AP.
2.4.1 Varying Number of Active Relays of FT

One of the advantages of the 3-hop system over the reference system is that
there are no physical limitations on the number of relays used in the FT. In
the 3-hop system discussed in the previous section we chose this number to be
equal with the Macro BS antenna elements of the 2-hop reference system. Here
we make use of this advantage by varying the number of relays in the FT as
well as the number of relays in the second VAA. The possible advantage offered
by increasing the number of relays is to increase the efficiency of the MIMO
channel provided that there are enough resources.
2.4.2 Varying Bandwidth Distribution

The unmodified 3-hop system distributes the bandwidth equally among all the
channels. This, as mentioned earlier, is not the optimum resource allocation
technique. The reason is that the first hop of the system will have a much
greater capacity than the second and third hops combined due to the fact that
the FT relays are closer to the AP than to the rest of the units of the system.
Given that the system is bounded by the lowest throughput it is important
that the resources be allocated in a way that would render the capacity of the
first hop and the combined capacity of the second and third hops equal (to
some extent). Thus, this modification considers assigning most of the band-
width to the second and third hops such that the first hop will have a band-
width BW1 and the second and third hops will have a bandwidth BW2,3 , where
BW1 +BW2,3 = BWT . Then the bandwidth of each channel in the first hop will
become BWhop1 = BW1 /NT and the bandwidth of each channel in the second
and third hops will become BWhop2,3 = BW2,3 /(NR + 1).
2.4.3 Alternate Relay Activation Algorithm

The capacity of the second and third hops acts as the bottle-neck of the unmod-
ified 3-hop system since the relays of the FT are usually quite far away from the
relays of the ST and the MT. One way of attempting to rectify this situation
is through presenting an alternate method for choosing which relays in the FT
should be activated. The activation criteria for the relays of the second VAA
is kept as it is so that the system remains comparable with the 2-hop reference
case.
The modified activation criteria consists of activating those relays (within a
certain predefined area around the AP) that have the best path gain with the
terminal rather than with the AP. The logic behind this modification is that
the line of sight paths between the FT relays and the mobile terminal consti-
tute a very significant impact on the capacity of the second and third hops as
proved in [14] (for the 2-hop system). Another incentive is that if the relays are
chosen to have a better path gain with the MT, then chances are that they will
also be closer to the ST relays which will improve the capacity of the MIMO
channel. Therefore, if the path gain for the direct path is optimized then the
capacity should increase at the expense of an acceptable decrease in the first
hop capacity.
Chapter 3
Simulation Environment
The programming environment used to virtually emulate the system model (de-
scribed in the previous section of this report) was Matlab. Of course, a de-
scription of the environment is necessary for comprehending how the study is
carried out. Therefore, this section is dedicated to explaining the simulation
environment and its parameters.
3.1 System Layout

In every simulation environment, the real life objects (such as relays) are placed
in a certain setting to enable the study to focus on the required result while
keeping the system as genuine as possible. The system layout herein is no ex-
ception, and in the following is a description of the chosen settings. Keeping in
mind that the main interest is to calculate the capacity of only one link from
the BS (or AP) to the terminal, where the BS and the AP are chosen to be
placed at the origin of the system.
The reference system and the proposed one have similar topologies with a
few differences. Throughout this discussion the discrepancies are pointed out
and explained clearly.
3.1.1 Placing the Terminal

The program uniformly generates hundreds of terminals along the circumference
of multiple circles with predefined radiuses. The reason for this sort of genera-
tion is to allow each generated terminal to be subjected to a different path gain
due to distance, Shadow fading, and Rayleigh fading variations. The different
path gains make it possible for us to study the average throughput to terminals
at a certain distance, which renders the results more realistic. Figure 3.1 shows
the positions of terminals generated along a circle of radius=R.
3.1.2 Placing the Relays

It has been explained earlier that there are two types of relays: regenerative
relays (forming the First VAA), and non-regenerative relays (forming the Sec-
19
20 Chapter 3. Simulation Environment
Figure 3.1: The Terminals are randomly but uniformly generated around the
BS at a distance R.
ond VAA). The regenerative relays are randomly but uniformly distributed in
a circular area (with a certain predefined density) around the AP. Similarly the
non-regenerative relays are randomly but uniformly distributed around the user
MTs (also with a certain predefined density).
For the reference system only the non-regenerative relays exist; hence, there is
only one VAA whose distribution is identical to that of the relays of the second
VAA of the proposed three hop system.
3.2 Path Gain Computation

The propagation model that will be adopted is based on three methods of power
attenuation: distance based attenuation (Gd ), a slow fading component (Gsf ),
and a fast fading component (Gf f ). We will not consider the antenna elements
gain since as noted in chapter two, it is assumed to be 0dB gain. The dis-
tance attenuation model is established according to the Okumura-Hata path
loss model [18]:
Loss = 69.55 + 26.16 × log (f ) − 13.82 × log (hBase ) − a(hM obile ) (3.1)
+(44.9 − 6.55 × log (hBase )) × log (d)
Where,
a(hM obile ) = (1.1 × log (f ) − 0.7) × hM obile − (1.56 × log (f ) − 0.8) (3.2)
This is not the most suitable model for the system at hand; however, it is one
of the most commonly used models, and it is the model that was implemented
in the previous work that was done in this area [11], [14].
The slow fading component models the shadow fading effect. Shadow fading
is due to the existence of major terrain obstacles such as hills, large buildings,
3.3. Interference and Noise Models 21
etc. . . obstructing the line of sight path of the signal being sent [19], and intro-
ducing a lognormal fading variable with standard deviation σsf and a spatial
correlation for all extracted variables within a distance of Dsf .
As for the fast fading component, it is there to represent the change of the
reflectors around the relays which would result in different path losses for the
signal arriving at the receiver [19]. This type of fading is modeled by means of
a Rayleigh fading function such that the fast fading received by a unit from one
antenna element is utterly uncorrelated with the fast fading received from the
other antenna elements. Fast fading is the only factor in the propagation model
that changes between the same MT and BS, since both the shadow fading and
path loss are assumed fixed (due to the fact that the analysis of the system is
based on snapshots).
Thus, we can model the overall power attenuation of the system as the sum
of the above three attenuation models (in dB):
Gtot = Gd + Gsf + Gf f (3.3)
3.3 Interference and Noise Models

The noise model that was adopted consisted of a fixed thermal noise No =
−200dB. The interference component, on the other hand, was modeled as
a normally distributed random function with mean −127.5dB and standard
2
deviation of σnrand = 2.5. The range of the interference component was taken
from the study done by [11] where multiple cell topology was considered.
3.4 Simulation Parameters

The values of the parameters1 that were used in the simulation are listed in
Table 3.1 below. It is assumed that the parameters are fixed unless otherwise
indicated in the ‘Results’ section.
Table 3.1: Table of Simulation Parameters.

Parameter Significance
α = 3.5 Attenuation Coefficient
Co = −38.8 Okumura-Hatta Coefficient
T =5 Number of BS Antennas
BWT = 5M Hz Total available bandwidth
No = −200dB Fixed Noise level
I = nrand − 127.5dB Interference
2
σnrand = 2.5 Normal distributed variable with mean zero
PBS = 20W Power of the BS
Prelay = 1w Power of indivisual relays
σsf = 1 Standard deviation of lognormal shadow fading
Dsf = 100 Correlation distance of lognormal shadow fading
Omni Antennas 0dB Amplification
1 The value of the Bandwidth is assumed 5MHz only for simulation purposes. In reality
BWT should be smaller since this study is assumed valid for Narrow-Band channels.
Chapter 4
Results
This chapter is divided into four main sections that encompass a summary of
the simulation results and the verification of these results. First, the study
done on the reference system is presented, followed by the study done on the
proposed system. The performance measure in both systems is the bit-rate of
the throughput (in bits/sec); however, it is normalized by 106 bits to stress on
the fact that the focus of this work is on the behavior of the graphs and not on
the absolute values of the results. After the two systems are considered, some
modifications that were made to the proposed system (to render it more efficient)
are revealed. Finally, a brief insight into the approximate cost of implementing
the proposed 3-hop system is presented.
4.1 Throughput of the Reference System

The 2-hop system was chosen to be the reference system since it has been studied
thoroughly by [11], [14], [8]. In addition, the proposed 3-hop system has been
constructed as a modification to the 2-hop case which makes the latter the most
logical reference system.
In this section the total throughput of the 2-hop system is studied in terms of
two variables. The first variable is the number of relays in the VAA distributed
around the terminal, while the second variable is the distribution density of the
VAA relays. It is important to note that the focus of this section (and this
thesis - as mentioned in Chapter 1) is not on optimizing the performance of the
2-hop case, but on presenting it as a valid reference system. This means that if
the 2-hop case is optimized through the use of multi-cell resource management
as was done in [11], then the 3-hop case will also perform better in accordance
with it.
Now we need to set our parameters and restrict the variables to a certain
range. The first parameter to fix is the number of BS antenna elements which
was set to 5. The choice of that specific number of antenna elements was based
on the physical restrictions imposed on an antenna in order to have all the
signals emitted experience the same shadow and distance fading with a non-
correlated fast fading component.
As explained in the ‘System Model’ chapter, the bandwidth is divided by the
number of relays in the VAA plus one (the direct path). The number of relays
23
24 Chapter 4. Results
is assumed to vary from zero to 10 relays. This range is logical since using more
relays will consume too many resources to justify their existence.
The density on the other hand was somewhat tricky to place within a certain
range; thus, as explained in subsection 2.1.2, the density was defined in terms of
the average distance of the closest relay to the terminal (equation: 2.1). Then
in order to be consistent with the study done in [11], the range of rµ was chosen
to be:
20m ≤ rµ ≤ 65m (4.1)

Which is roughly equivalent to a density range within the following bound-
aries:
56.59(Relays/km2 ) ≤ λ ≤ 509.3(Relays/km2 ) (4.2)

Six specific densities have been chosen within the given range. Table 4.1
shows the chosen densities and their corresponding rµ .
Table 4.1: Table of densities used within simulation.

λ (Relays/km2 ) rµ (m)
509.3 22.15
259.8 31.02
157.2 39.88
105.2 48.75
75.34 57.60
56.59 66.46
With the relevant variables discussed, the results of simulating the 2-hop
reference system are presented below for five different cases. Figure 4.1 repre-
sents the first case where the throughput of the system is measured for the six
different densities (discussed above) when the MT is 100m away from the BS.
The horizontal axis is the number of relays in the VAA, while the vertical axis
is the throughput in bits/sec. Figure 4.2 contains plots of the throughput for
the six densities when the MT is 300, 500, 700, and 900 meters away from the
BS respectively.
As can be observed in Figure 4.1, when the Terminal is relatively close to
the BS (100m away), then the total throughput of the system is proportional
to the density of the relays. This means that the more we increase the density
of the relays, then the better our throughput will be. Figure 4.3 shows how the
throughput varies when the density of relays is increased.
However, this does not apply for the other cases where the terminal is placed
at a further distance from the BS. We observe from the other plots for distances
larger than 100m that the different densities converge together in a bundle. This
phenomenon can be explained by the fact that when the MT is far from the BS
then the distance dependent path loss from the BS to the relays becomes the
most prominent factor. Thus, the relays (which are activated according to the
best gain to the terminal criteria) have approximately the same gain to the BS
(with small variations due to shadow and fast fading) no matter how dense they
are.
4.1. Throughput of the Reference System 25
18
DENSITY = 509.3 Relays/(square km)
16 DENSITY = 259.8 Relays/(square km)
14 DENSITY = 75.34 Relays/(square km)
Throughput (Bits/sec)

12
10
2
2 4 6 8 10
Number of Relays in the VAA
Figure 4.1: Normalized throughput of 2-hop system for MT 100m from BS.
9 5
DENSITY = 509.3 Relays/(square km) DENSITY = 509.3 Relays/(square km)
8 DENSITY = 259.8 Relays/(square km) DENSITY = 259.8 Relays/(square km)
4.5
7 DENSITY = 75.34 Relays/(square km) 4 DENSITY = 75.34 Relays/(square km)

6 3.5
5 3
4 2.5
3 2
2 1.5
1 1
2 4 6 8 10 2 4 6 8 10
Number of Relays in the VAA Number of Relays in the VAA
3 1.4
DENSITY = 259.8 Relays/(square km) 1.3 DENSITY = 259.8 Relays/(square km)
2.5 DENSITY = 105.2 Relays/(square km) DENSITY = 105.2 Relays/(square km)
1.2
DENSITY = 56.59 Relays/(square km) 1.1 DENSITY = 56.59 Relays/(square km)

2
1
0.9
1.5
0.8
1 0.7
0.6
0.5 0.5
2 4 6 8 10 2 4 6 8 10
Number of Relays in the VAA Number of Relays in the VAA
Figure 4.2: Normalized throughput of 2-hop system for MT 300m (upper left),
500m (upper right), 700m (lower left), and 900m (lower right) away from BS.
x 10
7.5
6.5
5.5
100 200 300 400 500
Density (Relays/Km²)
Figure 4.3: Normalized throughput of the 2-hop system with respect to varying
density for MT 100m away from BS and number of relays in the VAA=5.
Another significant trend that can be observed is that the total throughput
decreases logarithmically with the increase in the number of relays. This be-
havior appears in the plots regardless of the distance of MT from the BS, and it
is attributed to the fact that the resources needed to support more relays over-
weigh the benefits in performance. The solution to this problem is presented
in [11] through the use of tight resource allocation among the cells. In this study
it is not possible to implement resource management techniques that are typical
to multi-user systems since only one cell is considered.
x 10
7
6
0
100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
Distance Between MT and BS (m)
Figure 4.4: Normalized throughput of the 2-hop system with respect to vary-
ing distance of MT from BS, where number of relays in the VAA=5 and den-
sity=157.2 Relays/km2 .
Finally it is important to note that as the distance of the terminal from the
BS increases the total throughput decreases. This behaviour is emphasized in
Figure 4.4 which plots the throughput in terms of distance between MT and
BS. This is expected, of course, because the path loss increases with distance.
4.2. Throughput of the Proposed System 27
4.2 Throughput of the Proposed System

The 3-hop system is the system being evaluated and in order for the comparison
with the reference system to be meaningful, they have to be studied under the
same circumstances.
Again we are interested in the total throughput (Bits/sec) of the system in
terms of the number and density of relays. In this case the number of relays in
the FT is fixed to 5 so as to be compatible with the 5 BS antenna elements of
the reference system, while the number of relays in the second VAA is varied
between 1 and 10.
As for the density of relays, both tiers are assumed to have the same density;
hence, when we simulate for different density levels, this applies to both VAAs.
The total bandwidth remains fixed (as in the case of the 2-hop), but now we
divide it by the sum of: the number of relays in the FT, the number of relays
in the second VAA, and one (the MIMO channel). The rest of the parameters
are set to the same values as in the 2-hop case, and the results of this system’s
simulation are depicted in Figures 4.5, and 4.6.
6.5
509.3 Relays/km²
6 259.8 Relays/km²
157.2 Relays/km²
5.5 105.2 Relays/km²
75.34 Relays/km²
5 56.59 Relays/km²
4.5
3.5
2.5
2
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Number of Relays in the Second Tier VAA
Figure 4.5: Normalized throughput of 3-hop system for MT 100m from BS.
If we were to study the plots of the 3-hop case we can note some remarks to
discuss and explain the behavior of the system:
• The first detail to note about the 3-hop system plots is that the magnitude
of the total capacity for each case is much less than the magnitude of
2.6 1.5
509.3 Relays/km² 509.3 Relays/km²
259.8 Relays/km² 1.4 259.8 Relays/km²
2.4 157.2 Relays/km² 157.2 Relays/km²
1.2
1.1
2
1
1.8
0.9
1.6 0.8
0.7
1.4
0.6
1.2 0.5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Number of Relays in the Second Tier VAA Number of Relays in the Second Tier VAA
0.75 0.55
0.7 259.8 Relays/km² 0.5 259.8 Relays/km²
0.45
0.6
0.55
0.35
0.5
0.3
0.45
0.25
0.4
0.35 0.2
0.3 0.15
0.25 0.1
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Figure 4.6: Normalized throughput of the 3-hop system for MT at 300m (upper
left), 500m (upper right), 700m (lower left), and 900m (lower right) away from
AP.
the corresponding 2-hop case. To show this more explicitly, Figure 4.8
compares the throughput of the two systems for the same relay density
(157.2 Relays/Km2 ) with respect to the distance between the MT and
the AP (or BS). It is obvious that the 2-hop system outperforms the 3-
hop system and this is due to the fact that in the latter system more
resources are required to establish a connection. Since we are using the
same bandwidth but dividing it into more channels, then it is only natural
that we have worse performance.
• The second remark deals with the shape of the plots. It is obvious that
the plots in the 2-hop case decrease logarithmically, while the 3-hop plots
tend to rise to a maximum before starting to decrease as a function of the
number of relays in the second VAA. The explanation for this phenomenon
can be found in knowing two facts about the 3-hop system. The first fact
is that the total capacity (as discussed before) is the minimum between
the first hop capacity and the combination of the second and third hop
capacities. The plots of the first hop capacity (refer to Figure 4.7) show
us that it is much higher than the second and third hops combined which
means that the total capacity of the system is limited by and identical
to the combined capacity of the second and third hops. The second fact
is that Chop2−3 is approximately the same as the capacity for the 2-hop
reference system with a few discrepancies. The most major of these dis-
crepancies is the bandwidth; hence, if we were to make the assumption
that the other discrepancies are insignificant compared to the bandwidth
4.2. Throughput of the Proposed System 29
30
509.3 Relays/ km²
259.8Relays/ km²
25 157.2 Relays/ km²
105.2 Relays/ km²
75.34 Relays/ km²
15
10
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
30 28
509.3 Relays/ km² 509.3 Relays/ km²
259.8 Relays/ km² 26 259.8 Relays/ km²
25 157.2 Relays/ km² 157.2 Relays/ km²
105.2 Relays/ km²
22

20
15 18
16
10
14
12
5
10
0 8
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
20 20
509.3Relays/ km² 509.3 Relays/ km²
18 157.2 Relays/ km² 18 157.2 Relays/ km²
75.34 Relays/ km² 16 75.34 Relays/ km²
14
14
12
12
10
10 8
8 6
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Figure 4.7: Normalized throughput of the first hop, for distance between the
AP and MT equal to 100m (uppermost), 300m (2nd row left), 500m (2nd row
right), 700m (3rd row left), and 900m (3rd row right).
x 10
7
2−hop
6 3−hop
5
0
100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
Distance between MT and BS (m)
Figure 4.8: Comparison between the 2-hop and 3-hop normalized system
throughputs for density=157.2 Relays/Km2 where the VAA’s are composed
of 5 relays.
then we can mathematically prove that the capacity of the second and
third hops combined decreases logarithmically as in the 2-hop case. It
only appears to rise since it is divided by a different number of channels.
• Another thing to note is that the capacity of the first hop is much higher
than the capacity of the combined second and third hops. To see this fact
more clearly I have plotted (as an example) both the first hop capacity
and the combined second and third hops’ capacity in Figure 4.9 for the
case when the MT is 500m away from the AP and the relay density is
157.2 Relays/Km2 . The explanation for this is that the relays of the
FT are relatively close to the AP; thus, the path loss is not too great
and the available bandwidth is more than enough to provide for a good
throughput. This fact is used in the next section in order to improve the
performance of the whole system.
• The final remark deals with the different densities and their behavior. At
first glance it appears that the density plots contain no logical pattern
and in every plot it appears as though a different density is providing
the optimum performance. This is not true because these density plots
represent the average of many simulations that are varying over large
intervals. Therefore, these values are not statistically relevent.
4.3. Modifications for the Proposed System 31
100
First Hop
Second & Third Hops
10
0.1
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Number of relays in Second VAA
Figure 4.9: Comparison between the normalized throughput of the first hop and
the combination of second and third hops of the 3-hop system for density=157.2
Relays/Km2 and MT at 500m away from AP.
4.3 Modifications for the Proposed System

From the above results it is clear that the 3-hop system is performing much
worse than the 2-hop reference system. The graphs show that the proposed
system needs to be modified to render comparable throughput to the 2-hop
case if it is to be considered as a possible cheaper alternative. Towards this end,
three modifications on the originally proposed 3-hop system are presented and
discussed in this section.
4.3.1 Varying Number of Active Relays of FT

The results depicted in Figure 4.10 portray ten plots per graph that correspond
to the capacity of the system for a different number of relays in the FT. Each
graph considers the terminal at a different distance from the AP, with a prede-
fined density of the relays. The density is chosen to be the one that yielded the
best throughput (refer to the plots for the respective distances) in the previous
section.
The remarks that can be inferred from these plots are the following:
• From the graphs we can deduce that considering 5 relays in the FT is
not the optimum choice; however, choosing another number does not offer
much larger total capacity.
• It appears that choosing to activate 10 relays yields the best results when
the distance of the terminal from the AP is short. This can be explained
4.5
3.5
T=1
3 T=2
T=3
2.5
T=4
2 T=5
T=6
1.5 T=7
T=8
1 T=9
T=10
0.5
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
2 1.4
1.8
1.2
1.6 T=1
1.0 T=2
1.4
T=3
1.2 T=1
0.8 T=4
T=2
1 T=3 T=5
T=4 0.6 T=6
0.8
T=5
T=7
0.6 T=6
0.4
T=7 T=8
0.4 T=8 T=9
T=9 0.2
0.2 T=10 T=10
0 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1.4 0.35
T=1
T=2
1.2 T=3 0.3
T=4
T=5
1.0 T=6 0.25
T=7 T=1
T=8 T=2
0.8 T=9 0.2
T=3
T=10
T=4
0.6 0.15 T=5
T=6
0.4 0.1 T=7
T=8
0.05 T=9
0.2
T=10
0 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Figure 4.10: Normalized throughput of 3-hop system, with varying number of

FT relays, where MT is 100m (uppermost), 300m (2nd row left), 500m (2nd
row right), 700m (3rd row left), and 900m (3rd row right) from BS.
by the fact that the existence of more relays increases the probability that
these relays have better gain towards the relays of the second VAA. On the
other hand, this observation does not apply to the further distance cases,
and thus we can deduce that the the optimum number of relays is not
absolute and depends on many factors such as the range of the terminal.
100
Second &Third Hops
First Hop
10
1
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Figure 4.11: Comparison between the normalized throughput of the first hop
and the combination of second and third hops of the 3-hop system for T=10,
density=509.3 Relays/Km2 , and MT at 100m away from BS.
• The total capacity of the system is still limited by the combined capacity
of the second and third hops, while the first hop capacity is much larger.
Figure 4.11 shows both the first hop capacity and the combined second
and third hops capacity when the MT is at 100m from the BS.
4.3.2 Varying Bandwidth Distribution

Distributing the bandwidth equally among all the channels has been established
as a sub-optimum solution to say the least. For this reason another way of dis-
tributing the bandwidth is presented here.
The new distribution methodology consists of splitting the available band-
width into two unequal parts, one for the first hop and one for the second and
third hops. This split is justifiable since the first hop is separated from the rest
of the system by a tier of regenerative relays.
The bandwidth is not split into two equal parts since it is evident that the
first hop does not require as much resources as the rest of the system. For this
reason the following distribution was chosen empirically such that the majority
12
System Capacity
11 Capacity of 2nd and 3rd hops
Capacity of 1st hop
10
4
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
5 4
System Capacity System Capacity
Capacity of 2nd and 3rd hops Capacity of 2nd and 3rd hops
4.5 Capacity of 1st hop 3.5 Capacity of 1st hop
4 3
3.5 2.5
3 2
2.5 1.5
2 1
1.5 0.5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
2.2 1.3
System Capacity
2 Capacity of 2nd and 3rd hops
1.2
Capacity of 1st hop
1.8
1.1
1.6
1.0
1.4
System Capacity
1.2 Capacity of 2nd and 3rd hops 0.9
Capacity of 1st hop
1
0.8
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.6
0.4
0.2 0.5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Figure 4.12: Normalized throughput of the 3-hop system, with improved band-
width allocation for distance between the BS and MT equal to 100m (upper-
most), 300m (2nd row left), 500m (2nd row right), 700m (3rd row left), and
900m (3rd row right).
of the bandwidth is assigned to the second and third hops:

BWT 4BWT
BWhop1 = , BWhop2,3 = (4.3)
5T 5(R + 1)
where, T = Number of channels from AP to Active Relays in the FT,
and R + 1 = Number of channels from Active Relays in the second VAA to
terminal plus the MIMO channel.
The capacity is also a function of the distance between the AP and the ter-
minal; thus, the optimum division of the total bandwidth varies for the different
distances.That is when the MT is at a distance of 100m from the APthe opti-
mum bandwidth division could be BWhop1 = BW 4BWT

5T
T
and BWhop2,3 = 5(R+1) ;
however, when the distance is 500m (for example) then the optimum
bandwidth
division could be BWhop1 = BW 6BWT

7T
T
and BW hop2,3 = 7(R+1) . The division
chosen above in equation 4.3 is only intended to provide an insight into the
bandwidth optimization possibilities. The subject of optimizing the bandwidth
for all the different cases requires a complete thorough study by itself and the
time limitations set on this thesis allow only for a glimpse that proves how
important resource optimization is for improving the performance.
x 10
3.5
2−hop
3−hop
3
2.5
1.5
0.5
2 4 6 8 10
Number of relays of VAA (second VAA for the 3−hop system)
Figure 4.13: Comparison between the normalized throughputs of the 2-hop

system and 3-hop modified (Bandwidth Allocation) system. The number of
relays in FT=5, density=75.34 Relays/Km2 , and MT at 500m away from BS.
The depicted graphs in Figure 4.12 represent the case where the bandwidth
is divided according to equation 4.3. By observing these graphs closely, the
following remarks can be inferred:
• The total capacity of the system shows a notable increase and approaches
the capacity provided by the 2-hop system (refer to Figure 4.13). In fact
x 10
14
2−hop
3−hop
Throughput (Bits/sec) 12
10
4
2 4 6 8 10
Number of relays in VAA (second VAA for the 3−hop system)

system and 3-hop modified (Bandwidth Allocation) system. The number of
relays in FT=5, density=157.2 Relays/Km2 , and MT at 100m away from BS.
for some cases, such as for example the case of 7 active relays when the
terminal is 100m away from the AP (refer to Figure 4.14), we notice that
the capacity of the 3-hop system outperforms the 2-hop case by a slight
margin.
• When the Terminal is within a radius of 100 and 300 meters from the AP
then the combined capacity for the second and third hops is higher than
the first hop capacity especially when the number of relays in the second
tier is low.
• All the graphs show that the capacity of the first hop decreases to a certain
extent while the bottle-neck capacity of the rest of the system increases
thus raising the total capacity of the system.
• The shape of the curve for the second and third hops capacity resembels
that of the 2-hop system since now we divide the bandwidth by only R + 1
and not R + 1 + T .
• From these results we can deduce that if the relays were to know (by some
external means) the approximate distance of the target terminal then the
bandwidth allocation can be optimized in such a way as to allow the 3-hop
system to perform as well as the 2-hop case (perhaps better even).
4.3.3 Alternate Relay Activation Algorithm

The simulations so far have proved that the capacity of the second and third
hops is indeed acting as the bottle-neck of the system (except for the case when
25
System Capacity
1st Hop Capacity
20
15
10
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
16 7
1st Hop Capacity 6 1st Hop Capacity
14
5
4
12
3
10 8
7
8
6
5
6
4
4 3
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
6 2.4
5.5 1st Hop Capacity 1st Hop Capacity
2.2
5
2
4.5
4 1.8
3.5
1.6
3
1.4
2.5
2 1.2
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Figure 4.15: Normalized throughput of the 3-hop system with Alternate Relay
Activation Algorithm for distance between the BS and MT equal to 100m (up-
permost), 300m (2nd row left), 500m (2nd row right), 700m (3rd row left), and
900m (3rd row right).
optimized bandwidth allocation is applied). To rectify this situation the alter-

nate activation criteria for choosing which relays in the FT should be activated
is utilized. The activation criteria for the relays of the second VAA is kept as it
is so that the system remains comparable with the 2-hop reference case.
The modified activation criteria chooses those relays (within a certain pre-
defined area around the AP) that have the best path gain with the terminal
rather than with the AP. For the cases when the MT is at 100 and 300 meters
from the AP the predefined area is taken to be of radius 450 meters with density
157.2 Relays/Km2 . Alternatively for the cases when the MT is at 500 and 700
meters from the AP the predefined area is taken to be of radius 650 meters with
density 75.34 Relays/Km2 . As for the case when the MT is 900 meters away
from the AP then the predefined area is taken to be of radius 750 meters with
density 56.59 Relays/Km2 .
x 10
5
4
3
Unmodified 3−hop
Modified 3−hop
2
0
2 4 6 8 10
Number of relays in second VAA
Figure 4.16: Comparison between the normalized throughput of the 3-hop un-
modified system and 3-hop modified (Alternate Relay Activation Algorithm)
system. The number of relays in FT=5, density=75.34 Relays/Km2 , and MT
at 500m away from BS.
The simulation results for the terminal at different distances from the AP
with the same densities used in section 4.3.2. are displayed in the graphs of
Figure 4.15. The following comments can be made:
• The increase in capacity over the unmodified 3-hop case is clear and posi-
tively drastic. It can be observed clearly in Figure 4.16 for the case of the
MT being 500 meters away from the AP.
• The first hop capacity is still higher than the second and third hops capac-
ity but the difference is decreased. This is natural since the active relays
of the first tier no longer have the best path gain with the AP.
x 10
14
2−hop
3−hop
12
10
2
2 4 6 8 10
x 10
Number of relays in VAA (second
x 10
VAA for 3−hop system)
6 6
2−hop 2−hop
3−hop 3−hop
5 5
4 4
3 3
2 2
1 1
2 4 6 8 10 2 4 6 8 10
Number of relays in VAA (second VAA for 3−hop system) Number of relays in VAA (second VAA for the 3−hop system)

system and 3-hop modified (Alternate Relay Activation Algorithm) system. The
number of relays in FT=5, density=157.2 Relays/Km2 for MT 100m (Upper)
and 300m (lower left) away from AP, and density=75.34 Relays/Km2 for MT
at 500m (lower right) away from BS.
• Compared to the 2-hop reference system, we observe that for the case
when the terminal is 100 meters away from the AP, the performance is
approximately the same (refer to Figure 4.17). Furthermore, for the case
when the distance is 300 meters and above, the modified 3-hop system
outperforms the reference system by a clear and notable margin.
• The results prove that the direct path gains between the FT active re-
lays and the terminal constitute an extremely significant parameter in the
analysis and the choice of which relays to activate can radically influence
the performance of the whole system.
Chapter 5
Cost Evaluation
The cost evaluation presented in this chapter is a simple analysis based on the
cost estimation of different types of BS [3] in a typical Wideband Code Division
Multiple Access (WCDMA) system.
According to [3] the cost involved in setting up a BS can be split into two
major categories. The first category is the Initial Cost and this includes the price
of the equipment, the cost of building the site, and the site installation costs.
The second category is called the Annual Cost and it encompasses the annual
operations and management (O&M) dues, the site lease, and the transmission
cost.
The cost involved in setting up a Macro BS is depicted in Table 5.1 and the
values are in European Euro (e ). Similarly the cost involved in setting up a
Pico BS is depicted in Table 5.2 and the values are also in European Euro (e ).
Table 5.1: Macro BS costs.

Initial Cost Annual Cost
Equipment = 50K Annual O&M = 3K
Building Site = 70K Site Lease = 10K
Site Installation = 30K Transmission = 5K
Total = 150K Total = 18K
Table 5.2: Pico BS costs.

Initial Cost Annual Cost
Equipment = 5K Annual O&M = 1K
Building Site = − Site Lease = 1K
Site Installation = 3K Transmission = 5K
Total = 8K Total = 7K
For the sake of this analysis, the AP and each one of the relays shall be
assumed to have the same cost as a Pico BS, while the BS implemented in the
2-hop reference system shall be assumed to have the same cost as the Macro
BS.
In order to compare the cost of the two systems we shall consider a modified
41
42 Chapter 5. Cost Evaluation
version of the 3-hop system which is the best modification scenario presented
in the earlier sections. Therefore, we shall assume to have 5 active relays in
the FT, and we shall activate them according to the modified activation criteria
discussed in section 4.3.2.
The simulation of the 3-hop system with these assumptions can be viewed
in the graphs of Figure 4.17 which show that the total throughput is approx-
imately the same as the 2-hop reference system with some positive difference
in favor of the 3-hop. This means that we can achieve, to some extent, the
same performance for both systems; thus, rendering them directly comparable
in cost.
The number of relays used in the VAA’s is irrelevant in this analysis since
both systems have the same cost for the same number of relays. Consequently,
calculating the initial setup cost of the AP equals 8Ke which is 142Ke less than
the initial cost of setting up the Macro BS which stands at 150Ke .
Now keeping in mind the initial setup cost, we proceed to calculate the
Annual Cost assuming that the units of the system have a lifespan of 10 years.
We also assume that the cost of the site lease increases 10% each year. Using
equation 5.1 and knowing that x = 10Ke is the site lease while y = 8Ke is the
sum of the annual O&M and Transmission costs for the Macro BS, then for 10
years, these costs add up to ≈ 240Ke .
9
X
x · (1.1)n + y (5.1)
n=0
Similarly for the AP, using equation 5.1 and knowing that x = 1Ke is the
site lease while y = 6Ke is the sum of the annual O&M and Transmission costs,
then for 10 years, these costs add up to ≈ 76e . If we add these values to the
Initial costs we would have a total cost of 390Ke for the 2-hop system and a
total cost of 84Ke for the 3-hop modified system.
This means that for approximately the same performance (with the modified
3-hop performing better) the three hop system will cost ≈ 306Ke less than the
two hop system. It has to be noted here that the numbers used in this evaluation
are not absolutely accurate, they are simply there to give the reader an insight
into the cost savings that are expected to be attained from implementing the
proposed system, rather than the reference system.
Chapter 6
Conclusion
The objective of this work was to study the feasibility of implementing a 3-hop
CMIMOR network and evaluating it with respect to the 2-hop CMIMOR sys-
tem. The resources needed to implement the proposed system were discussed
in detail throughout this report and the system was implemented in a Matlab
environment.
The results showed that the 2-hop reference system was superior in terms
of total throughput to the initially proposed 3-hop system. The reason for the
inferiority in performance of the latter system was the fact that more channels
had been added with equally allocated resources to all channels. This alloca-
tion of resources was obviously not optimal which required the introduction of
modifications on the initially proposed system.
The modifications discussed herein exploited the inherent properties of the
3-hop system to give it an advantage over the reference system. The first mod-
ification was to vary the number of active relays in the first tier of relays. The
goal from this modification was to increase the diversity of the received signal
in the second and third hops which lead to a slight but negligible increase in
system capacity as the number of active relays increased for the case where the
terminal was relatively close to the Access Point.
The second modification opted for an unequal distribution of the limited
bandwidth between the first hop, and the combination of second and third
hops. It was apparent that the first hop needed less bandwidth than the rest
of the system and hence it was offered approximately one fifth of the available
bandwidth. This maneuver raised the bottle-neck capacity of the second and
third hops so that the total capacity became quite close to the capacity of the
reference system, even overtaking it in some special cases.
Last but definitely not least was the introduction of a new activation crite-
rion for the relays of the first tier. The aim from this was to allow the relays
of the first tier to have better direct path gain to the terminal and increase the
combined capacity of the second and third hops, at the expense of an acceptable
decrease in the capacity of the first hop. The simulation results proved that this
modification did indeed increase the throughput of the system drastically, to
the extent of over performing the 2-hop reference system.
After the proposed modifications elevated the capacity of the 3-hop system,
it was possible to compare it with the reference system in terms of cost. The
straightforward study revealed that the 3-hop system is much cheaper to imple-
43
44 Chapter 6. Conclusion
ment than the 2-hop and if modified, as was discussed above, could provide for
better total throughput too.
Finally, the following points constitute a summary of the main conclusions
drawn from this work:
• The three-hop proposed system cannot compare to the throughput of the

two-hop reference system unless it is modified.
• The most significant modifications were the optimized bandwidth allo-
cation for the channels, and the alternative algorithm for activating the
relays in the first VAA.
• The proposed modified 3-hop system can outperform the reference system
at a lower cost of implementation per throughput.
Chapter 7
Suggested Future Work
Due to time limitations, the study that has been carried out and discussed in
this report does not cover all the aspects and angles of the 3-hop CMIMOR
system which leaves room for more enhancements and suggestions that are con-
ferred herein.
7.1 Propagation Model

The propagation model used in this thesis was the Okumura-Hata which does
not really apply for all scenarios. In fact the Okumura-Hata model applies
only for urban areas at 900 and 1800 MHz bands, flat terrain, and the antenna
heights must be above roof level [18]. It was used here only because it is a very
common propagation model that was implemented by most of the references.
The use of another more accurate model would probably lead to more realistic
results and better performance.
7.2 Multi-Cell Topology

The system here has been investigated according to the existence of one trans-
mitter and one receiver. It would be interesting to study system in a multi-cell
topology with more than one user as was done for the 2-hop reference case
in [11]. This sort of study would allow for enhanced resource allocation that
would surely increase the throughput of the system.
7.3 Vary the Density of the Relays

The densities of the relays in the FT and the second VAA are always assumed
to be varying identically throughout this report. One suggestion would be to
attempt to simulate the densities independently. This might not yield a signifi-
cant increase in throughput but it is one of the variables that could be studied
45
46 Chapter 7. Suggested Future Work
more to be able to emulate the real life density distributions of the relays.
7.4 Relay Activation

The selection criteria for activating the relays plays an essential role in the per-
formance of the system as was shown in section 4.3.3 and constitutes a complete
study by itself. This thesis focuses on two possible activation criteria for the
relays of the FT: best path gain from the AP and best path gain from the MT.
As for the second VAA only the best path gain to the MT criterion is consid-
ered.
One suggestion includes activating the relays that have best path gain to
each other. That is, activate the relays of one of the VAAs first and then acti-
vate the relays of the second VAA according to the best path gains to the active
relays of the first VAA.
Another suggestion is to activate the relays that have the best combined
path gains to the MT and to the relays of the AP. This technique would im-
prove the capacity of the second and third hops; hence, the total throughput.
The other aspect of relay activation is the decision upon the number of ac-
tive relays. The question of the optimum number of relays with the available
resources presents itself. One suggestion to answer this question is to check if
all the activated relays at one point are contributing equally or not. If there
are some activated relays that are not contributing in proportion with the rest
of the relays then maybe it would be better to shut them down and resume
transmission with a lower number of active relays.
7.5 Bandwidth Allocation

The issue of bandwidth allocation between the first hop, and the second and
third hops is quite significant. Proper allocation could improve the performance
as was shown in section 4.3.2 of this report. A good suggestion is to study how
to balance the bandwidth between the two parts of the system so that no part
becomes a bottle neck for the whole system.
7.6 Regenerative Relays

In this study it was assumed that the relays in the FT were regenerative while
the ones in the second VAA were non-regenerative. It would be interesting to
investigate the use of regenerative relays in both tiers since it should provide
better throughput according to [8]. The cost of these regenerative relays could
also be affordable since the current studied system proved to be much cheaper
than the reference system.
References
[1] Dohler M.; Lefranc E.; Aghvami H. Virtual antenna arrays for future
wireless mobile communication systems. ICT2002, Beijing, China, June
2002.
[2] Dohler M.; Said F.; Aghvami H.;. An overview over vaa. PREP2002,
Nottingham, UK, April 2002.
[3] Johansson K.; Furuskar A.; Karlsson P.; Zander J.;. Relation between base
station characteristics and cost structure in cellular systems. IEEE PIMRC,
2004.
[4] Ozdemir M.K.; Arvas E.; Arslan H.;. Dynamics of spatial correlation and
implications on mimo systems. In Communications Magazine, IEEE, vol-
ume 42, pages S14–S19, June 2004.
[5] Gesbert D.; Shafi M.; Da shan Shiu; Smith P.J.; Naguib A.;. From theory
to practice: an overview of mimo space-time coded wireless systems. In
Selected Areas in Communications, IEEE Journal on, volume 21, pages
281–302, April 2003.
[6] Beach M.A.; McNamara D.P.; Fletcher P.N.; Karlsson P.;. Mimo-a solution
for advanced wireless access? In Eleventh International Conference on (IEE
Conf. Publ. No. 480), volume 1, pages 231–235, April 2001.
[7] Chiurtu N.; Rimoldi B.; Telatar E.;. On the capacity of multi-antenna
gaussian channels. In Information Theory,IEEE International Symposium,
page 53, June 2001.
[8] Dohler M. Virtual antenna array. PhD Thesis, submitted to University of

London, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, 2003.
[9] Hasna M.O.; Alouini M.-S.;. Performance analysis of two-hop relayed trans-
missions over rayleigh fading channels. In IEEE 56th, Vehicular Technology
Conference, volume 4, pages 1992–1996, Sept 2002.
[10] Munoz O.; Agustin A.; Vidal J.;. Cellular capacity gains of cooperative
mimo transmission in the downlink. In Communications, 2004 Interna-
tional Zurich Seminar, pages 22–26, 2004.
[11] Nordmark H.;. Resource allocation for cooperative mimo relaying systems.
M.Sc. Thesis, RST KTH, February 2005.
47
48 References
[12] Kendall M.G.; Moran P.A.P.;. Geometrical Probability. Charles Griffin and
Co. Ltd. London, 1963.
[13] Dohler M.; Gkelias A.; Aghvami H.;. A resource allocation strategy for
distributed mimo multi-hop communication systems. In Communications
Letters, IEEE, volume 8, pages 99–101, Feb 2004.
[14] Rodriguez M.;. Cooperative mimo relaying. M.Sc. Thesis, RST KTH,
January 2004.
[15] Timus B.;. Capacity calculations for a non-regenerative cmimor connection.
prepared within the Cooperative Antenna System(CSA) project supported by
Wireless @ KTH, Stockholm , Sweden, 2004.
[16] C.E. Shannon. The mathematical theory of information. University of
Illinois Press, Urbana, Illinois, 1949.
[17] Proakis J. G.; Salehi M.;. Communication Systems Engineering. Prentice
Hall, 1994.
[18] Digital mobile radio towards future generation systems. COST 231 Final
Report.
[19] Ahlen L.; Zander J.;. Principles of Wireless Communications. Studentlit-
teratur, Lund. Second edition, 1998.
Appendix A
First Hop Analysis
This analysis is intended to study two different scenarios for the first hop. In
the first scenario the AP is assumed to be transmitting the signal to the active
relays of the FT through independent orthogonal channels, while in the second
scenario the AP simply broadcasts the information over one common channel.
The objective is to determine analytically which scenario provides the optimum
throughput for the system.
A.1 Scenario One

The assumptions considered in this case are the following:
• The AP transmits through ‘T’ independent orthogonal channels.
• The signal is divided into uncorrelated equal portions and sent over to the
different relays.
• The second hop of the system is a MIMO channel.
• The third hop of the system compromises the ‘R’ orthogonal channels from
the active relays to the terminal.
• The Total Bandwidth is divided equally over all the channels.
A.1.1 Capacity for the First Hop

From Shanon’s channel limit [16], and as explained in ( [17], p.585), we can
obtain the following formula for the capacity of each individual channel of the
first hop:
P × Gt
C1t = W1 × log2 [1 + ] (A.1)
T × No W1
WT otal
W1 = (A.2)
T +R+1
where,
49
50 Appendix A. First Hop Analysis
C1t = the capacity of the channel between the AP and Relay t.

WT otal = the total bandwidth of the system (5MHz).
T = the number of relays in the first tier.
R = the number of relays in the second tier.
P = the maximum power transmitted by a relay = cst.
Gt = Gt,dist(d) × Gt,shadow × Gt,Rayleigh
Thus the expression of the total capacity that could be provided by the
first hop would be limited by the minimum capacity of the multiple channels as
follows:
C1hop1 = T × min[C1t ], t=1→T (A.3)
A.1.2 Capacity for the Second & Third Hops

As derived in [15], the capacity of the second and third hops can be expressed
in the following form:
d
1X
C1hops2−3 = W1 × ln(1 + λB,i ) (A.4)
2 i=1
Where, λB,i is in terms of noise. Through simulation it will be possible to

determine the bottle-neck of the system; hence, the system Capacity would be
equal to:
C1total = minimum{C1hop1 , C1hops2−3 } (A.5)
A.2 Scenario Two

The assumptions considered in this case are the following:
• The AP Broadcasts over one channel.
• The same signal is subjected to different path loss before it is recieved by

all relays.
• The second hop of the system is a MIMO channel.
• The third hop of the system compromises the Ŕórthogonal channels from
the active relays to the terminal.
• The Total Bandwidth is divided equally over all the channels.
A.2.1 Capacity for the First Hop

In this case we have same channel but different paths from the transmitter to
the receivers; hence, each path would have a different signal to noise ratio. This
means that the capacity is limited by the lowest SNR (given that the SNR is
influenced by the fading coefficients):
A.3. Comparison of the Two Scenarios 51
P × Gt
C2t = minimum{W2 × log2 [1 + ]} (A.6)
No W2
WT otal
W2 = (A.7)
R+2
where,
C2t = the capacity of the channel between the AP and Relay t.

WT otal = the total bandwidth of the system (5MHz).
A.2.2 Capacity for the Second & Third Hops

As derived in [15], the capacity of the second and third hops can be expressed
in the following form:
d
1X
C2hops2−3 = W2 × ln(1 + λB,i ) (A.8)
2 i=1
Where, λB,i is in terms of noise. Through simulation it will be possible to

determine the bottle-neck of the system; hence, the system Capacity would be
equal to:
C2total = minimum{C2hop1 , C2hops2−3 } (A.9)
A.3 Comparison of the Two Scenarios

If we were to set the Capacity of the first hop as the limiting factor of the system
capacity in order to determine which scenario performs better, then we would
have the following two inequalities:
d
P × Gt 1X
T × W1 × log2 [1 + ] ≥ W1 × ln(1 + λB,i ) (A.10)
T × No W1 2 i=1
d
P × Gt 1X
W2 × log2 [1 + ] ≥ W2 × ln(1 + λB,i ) (A.11)
No W2 2 i=1
If we denote:
d
1X
ln(1 + λB,i ) → A
2 i=1
P × Gt
log2 [1 + ] → T ×B
T × No W1
P × Gt
log2 [1 + ] → C
No W2
52 Appendix A. First Hop Analysis
Thus, equations A.10 and A.11 reduce to: T ×B ≥ A and C ≥ A respectively.

×Gt
Then if we assign the variable x = NPo W total
then the comparison T × B >< C
becomes as follows:
R+1
T × log2 [1 + x(1 + )] >< log2 [1 + x(R + 1)] (A.12)
T
By analyzing equation A.12 and running a simple simulation(refer to Fig-
ure A.1) for different values of the variables of x and R while assuming that
T=5; we obtain the result that T × B has the greater capacity. This means that
the first scenario, where the AP sends the signal over independent orthogonal
channels, outperforms the second scenario.
Figure A.1: Comparison between the 1st scenario (upper line) and 2nd scenario
(lower line) for x varying from 1 to 43dB. Note the thick lines represent a bundle
of 10 plots each that correspond to values of R varying from 1 to 10 relays per
VAA.
Appendix B
Relay Density Derivation
To give a more perceptive idea of what a certain distribution of the relays

means, I have related the density to the average distance of the closest relay to
the terminal denoted as rµ . Thus a certain rµ corresponds to a certain λ. The
derivation of the relation is initiated as follows:
We assume λ is the density of relays in a certain area A. Then from the

‘Geometrical Probability’ paper by KENDALL and MORAN [12], the average
distance r1 is distributed according to the following function:
2
2λπr1 · exp(−λπr1 ) ·dr1 (B.1)
To compute the average rµ of the distribution B.1 we proceed as follows:
Z ∞
rµ = E[r1 ] = r1 · f (r1 )dr1 (B.2)
0
denote : x = r1
a = πλ
Z ∞
2
⇒ rµ = 2× ax2 · exp(−ax ) ·dx (B.3)
0
r
1 π
⇒ rµ = 2× × (B.4)
4 a
Replacing the values of a and x back into the equation results in:
r
1
rµ = 0.5 × (B.5)
λ
Hence equation B.5 is the relation between the density and the average
distance of the closest relay to the mobile terminal.
53

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Three Step Cooperative MIMO Relaying

Feasibility And Evaluation Study

Master’s Degree Project

Feasibility And Evaluation Study

Master’s Degree Project

Radio Communication Systems Laboratory

The Cooperative MIMO Relaying (CMIMOR) System is a relatively new topic

7 Suggested Future Work 45

A First Hop Analysis 49

B Relay Density Derivation 53

3.1 Table of Simulation Parameters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

4.1 Table of densities used within simulation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

5.1 Macro BS costs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

1.1 Diagram of MIMO wireless transmission system. . . . . . . . . . 3

4.1 Normalized throughput of 2-hop system for MT 100m from BS. . 25

4.10 Normalized throughput of 3-hop system, with varying number of

Figure 1.1: Diagram of MIMO wireless transmission system.

increase in capacity relative to the increase in the n number of antennas [7].

1.1.2 Virtual Antenna Arrays

Figure 1.2: VAA Scheme suggested by Dohler.

Figure 1.3: VAA groups in a Cell.

1.2 Problem Definition

1. A multi-antenna Macro BS provides good performance but is expensive.

would be if it is possible to achieve approximately the same performance

Figure 1.4: Three-Step Cooperative MIMO Relaying.

• A brief comparison of the approximate expenses involved in the imple-

2.1 System Units

2.1.1 The Macro BS

2.1.2 The Acess Point

2.1.3 The Mobile Terminal

2.1.4 The Relays

2.2 The Reference System Model

2.2.1 General Architecture of the 2-hop System

Figure 2.2: Example of Channel Assignment - number of active relays is 4.

2.2.2 Relay Activation Criteria

2.2.3 Radio Resource Allocation

2.2.4 Capacity Calculations

Figure 2.4: The Schematic Description of a CMIMOR architecture.

The following capacity calculations are based on two assumptions. The

Chop2−3 = max {I (y, x)} where, (2.5)

2.3 The Three-Hop Model

2.3.1 General Architecture of the 3-hop System

Figure 2.5: The three-hop CMIMOR scenario.

2.3.2 Relay Activation Criteria

parameters to be discussed in the next chapter.

2.3.3 Radio Resource Allocation

2.3.4 Capacity Calculations

• The capacity of the first hop.

• The capacity of the second and third hops combined.

Ct = the capacity of the channel between the AP and Relay t.

Chop1 = T × min[Ct ], t=1→T (2.13)

Ctotal = minimum{Chop1 , Chops2−3 } (2.14)

2.4 Modified 3-hop System

2.4.1 Varying Number of Active Relays of FT

2.4.2 Varying Bandwidth Distribution

2.4.3 Alternate Relay Activation Algorithm

3.1 System Layout

3.1.1 Placing the Terminal

3.1.2 Placing the Relays