On the Error Rate Performance and Asymptotic Diversity Order of Multi-Hop Two-Antenna Decode-and-Forward Relay Systems with STBC-CIOD over Rayleigh Fading Channels

Abstract

In this letter, we analyze a symbol error rate (SER) of the multi-hop relay network employing space-time block code from coordinate interleaved orthogonal design (STBC-CIOD), where a source, a destination, and multiple relays with decode-and-forward (DF) protocol are equipped with two antennas. Especially, the union upper and lower bounds on the average SER and the asymptotic diversity order are provided by deriving an accurate closed-form formula for the corresponding symbol pairwise error rate (SPER). We demonstrate that the theoretically derived bounds are in good agreement with the simulation results.