On relay selection in bursty impulsive noise channel

Abstract

Relay selection among available relays is crucial in improving the performance of cooperative relaying. In this paper, we address the relay selection for a multi-relay decode-and-forward (DF) cooperative relaying scheme over channels impaired by bursty impulsive noise in the presence of Rayleigh fading. For this scheme, we propose a novel best relay selection technique which is based on both the channel state information of source-relay and relay-destination links and the state of the impulsive noise that affect those links. Then, we provide a end-to-end bit error rate (BER) expression for the proposed scenario using BPSK modulation. Finally, the accuracy of the provided analytical results and the effectiveness of the proposed best relay selection algorithm under different network topology is discussed. It is shown that, by using the bursty impulsive noise characteristics, the proposed relay selection algorithm performs significantly better than the conventional relay selection algorithm which is optimized for additive white Gaussian noise environment.