Relay node selection and power allocation for distributed self-concatenated convolutional codes

In this contribution, the performance of a Distributed Self-Concatenated Convolutional Coding (DSECCC) scheme is analyzed by using Iterative Decoding (ID) for cooperative communications (CC) with the aid of relay selection (RS) and power allocation (PA). In the RS based DSECCC-ID scheme, where the transmit Signal to Noise power Ratio (SNR) is equal for both source and relay, we can achieve the minimum value of the required SNR at both destination and relay simultaneously by choosing a relay at an appropriate geographical location. By contrast, in the PA based DSECCC-ID scheme, where the position of the relay is in the middle, minimum required transmit SNRs are used both at the source and the relay. These schemes are analyzed with the help of binary Extrinsic Information Transfer (EXIT) charts. From our simulation results, we found that the RS based DSECCC-ID scheme outperforms the PA based DSECCC-ID scheme.