Energy-Efficient Relaying Strategy with Network Coding in Two-Way Parallel Channels

We consider a two-way communication assisted by parallel regenerative decode-and-forward relays operating in orthogonal channels. In a system with limited channel state information at each source and relay node, an optimum distributed power allocation strategy is proposed to minimize the total transmit power, providing a target signal-to-noise ratio at each destination with a target outage probability. Moreover, combined with opportunistic relaying and network coding, a distributed decision mechanism is proposed for the relay node to decide whether to help the transmission or not. In this proposal, each source works out the transmit power and the decision threshold then broadcasts them. The selected relay compares the decision threshold with the channel gain of its weaker relay-to-destination link, then determines whether to forward the networkcoded data or not. Simulation results show the advantage of this strategy in terms of energy efficiency for a two-hop two-way communication scenario. The proposed strategy is very flexible as it can trade outage to power consumption and vice versa.