Distributed suboptimal schemes for TAS/SC and TAS/LS in fixed-gain AF relaying systems

We design and analyze two distributed suboptimal schemes for transmit-antenna selection and link selection in a dual-hop, fixed-gain, amplify-and-forward relaying system, composed by one multi-antenna source, one single-antenna destination, and one single-antenna relay. The proposed schemes share the same antenna-selection policy, but differ from each other in the way the direct or relaying link is selected for communication. In a first scheme, the link is selected after transmission, at the destination; in a second scheme, it is selected before transmission, at the source. A great advantage of the proposed schemes over the optimal centralized solution is their low and constant delay/feedback overhead, regardless of the number of transmit antennas. In addition, the second scheme brings an improved spectral efficiency, once it saves one time slot when selecting the direct link. We derive analytical lower and upper bounds for the outage probability of the first scheme, in single-fold integral form, and exact closed-form expressions for the outage probability and mean spectral efficiency of the second scheme. We also perform an asymptotic analysis, showing that the first scheme achieves full diversity order, whereas the second scheme achieves full diversity order minus one, as a penalty for its improved spectral efficiency.