BER Performance Analysis of the Optimum ML Receiver for Decode-and-Forward Cooperative Protocol

Abstract

In this paper, the performance of optimum maximum-likelihood (ML) receiver is analyzed for the decode-and-forward (DF) cooperative communication protocol in wireless networks. A closed-form bit-error-rate (BER) analysis is presented for the DF cooperative protocol with BPSK modulation and with ML detection at the destination. To further understand the result, we develop an approximation for the BER analysis in a special scenario. Simulation results are presented to validate both the closed-form BER expression and the approximation.