Selection of the Best Two-Hop AF Wireless Link under Multiple Antenna Schemes over a Fading Channel

In evaluating the performance of a dual-hop wireless link, the effects of large and small scale fading has to be considered. To overcome this fading effect, several schemes, such as multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) with orthogonal space time block codes (OSTBC), different combining schemes at the relay and receiving end, and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) are used in both the transmitting and the relay links. In this paper, we first make compare the performance of a two-hop wireless link under a different combination of space diversity in the first and second hop of the amplify-and-forward (AF) case. Our second task in this paper is to incorporate the weak signal of a direct link and then by applying the channel model of two random variables (one for a direct link and another for a relayed link) we get very impressive result at a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) that is comparable with other models at a higher SNR. Our third task is to bring other three schemes under a two-hop wireless link: use of transmit antenna selection (TAS) on both link with weak direct link, distributed Alamouti scheme in two-hop link and single relay antenna with OFDM subcarrier. Finally, all of the schemes mentioned above are compared to select the best possible model. The main finding of the paper is as follows: the use of MIMO on both hops but application TAS on both links with weak direct link and the full rate OFDM with the sub-carrier for an individual link provide a better result as compared to other models.