Pragmatic Analog Network Coding with Relay Selection for OFDM-Based Multirelay Networks

We consider two-way relay (TWR) networks consisting of two communicating nodes and multiple relays built upon orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing signaling. For low-cost implementation of relays, two pragmatic TWR protocols are proposed based on analog network coding (ANC). The proposed two-phase (2P)- and three-phase (3P)-ANC schemes employ time-domain instantaneous power scaling and relay selection to improve the outage performance without equipping discrete Fourier transform (DFT) and inverse DFT functions at the relay. In particular, we devise a relay power allocation factor and a resultant relay selection metric for the proposed 3P-ANC scheme, which can be implemented at low complexity. For the proposed schemes, the outage probability and achievable diversity order are also analyzed, which reveals a larger diversity order of the 3P-ANC scheme than the 2P-ANC scheme. The results from analysis and simulation show that the proposed schemes outperform the conventional 2P-ANC schemes employing time-domain average power scaling and distributed space–time block coding or frequency-domain power scaling and relay selection.