In this paper, we analyze the performance of the cooperative relay communication system which uses orthogonal frequency division multiplexing(OFDM) with hierarchical subcarrier modulation. In the cooperative relay communication system, data transmission is accomplished in two time slots. In the first time slot, the source broadcasts the signal to the relay and to the destination. The relay demodulates the received signal, remodulates and forwards it to the destination in the second time slot. The source uses hierarchical modulation for subcarriers to deal with the signal-to-noise power ratio (SNR) difference in the source-relay and source-destination links. The bit error rate (BER) of the relay transmission system with hierarchical modulation depends on the hierarchical modulation parameter. First, we derive the relationship between BER and the parameter, and find the optimal parameter giving the minimum BER through computer simulations. Then, we analyze the performance of the proposed cooperative relay communication system according to the relay location. From this results, we find optimal relay location to maximize the BER performance.
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