Relaying Strategies for Uplink in Wireless Cellular Networks

Abstract: In this paper, we analyze the impact of relays on the uplink performance of FDMA cellular networks. We focus our analysis on Decode and Forward techniques, with the aim of measuring the improvements which can be achieved in terms of throughput and energy saving. We apply a stochastic geometry based approach to a scenario with inter-cell interference and reuse factor equal to 1. The first goal of this work is to observe what is the impact of various relay features, such as transmission power, location and antenna pattern, when a half-duplex constraint is imposed. The second goal is to determine how much relaying can be beneficial also for users who are not at the cell edge, and who can therefore use a direct link towards the base station. We show that if more refined decoding techniques, such as Successive Interference Cancellation and Superposition Coding, are properly used, considerable gains can be obtained for these mobiles as well.