Power Allocation for Efcient Cooperative

Communication
Sarmad Sohaib, Daniel K. C. So and Junaid Ahmed
School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
University of Manchester
PO. Box 88, Manchester, M60 1QD, United Kingdom
Email: sarmad.sohaib@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk, d.so@manchester.ac.uk and junaid.ahmed@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk
AbstractCooperative communication achieves diversity
through spatially separated cooperating nodes, which are battery
powered in most applications. Therefore the energy consumption
must be minimized without compromising the transmission
quality (bit error rate). In this context, we present a novel
power allocation scheme that results in efcient cooperative
multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication. Con-
sidering channel path loss, the total transmission energy is
distributed between the source and the relay nodes. The energy
distribution ratio between the relay and direct link is optimized
such that the quality of received signal is maintained with
minimum total transmission energy consumption. We calculate
the energy distribution ratio analytically and veried it through
computer simulation. With the new power allocation scheme, the
system also obtains an increased channel capacity as compared to
cooperative scheme with conventional equal power allocation and
non-cooperative scheme. Optimal relay positioning with proposed
energy allocation scheme is explored to maximize the capacity.
I. INTRODUCTION
In the last few decades, many communication standards and
systems have been designed to enhance the performance in
terms of link reliability, data rate and interference reduction.
The major technical challenge in wireless communication is
multipath fading that occurs between transmitter and receiver.
This multipath effect, which was perceived as impairment, is
now considered an opportunity for providing reliable com-
munication at high data rates. By using multiple antennas
at transmitter and receiver, known as multiple-input multiple-
output (MIMO), we can exploit the spatial channels to provide
diversity and/or multiplexing gain [1].
Cooperative diversity is an extension of spatial diversity that
exploits the broadcast nature of wireless channel. It mimics the
performance advantages of MIMO systems and is achieved
by the transmission through additional relay nodes [2][9].
The source node broadcasts the data to relay and destination
nodes. Both the direct and relayed signals are combined at the
destination using combiners [10]. In general, there are two
kinds of relaying modes: amplify-and-forward (ANF), where
the relay simply amplies the noisy version of the signal
transmitted by source, and decode-and-forward (DNF), where
relay decodes, re-encodes and re-transmits the signals.
Most of the energy constrained networks such as coopera-
tive wireless sensor networks are usually powered by batteries
which are limited and difcult to change or recharge [11].
R
S D
h
sd
h
sr
h
rd
Fig. 1. Single relay cooperative system.
Thus minimizing the energy consumption to maximize the life-
time of cooperative network is one of the important factors in
network design. Energy efcient protocols must be derived
and used for data transfer to increase the network life-time.
In [12], [13] it was shown that the total energy consumption
in transmission of data can be reduced by using cooperative
communication. In [2], [3], equal distribution of signal energy
between direct and relayed link was used for cooperative
communication. In [14], power allocation expression is derived
to maximize the channel capacity in fading environment.
In [15], symbol error rate is minimized for optimal power
allocation. However, these works ignored the channel path
loss, which is necessary for practical implementation. To the
best of our knowledge, there is no existing work on power
allocation for cooperative systems including path loss.
In this paper, we propose a power allocation scheme for co-
operative communication with channel path loss. The scheme
aims to minimize the total transmission energy consumption
without affecting the transmission quality and thus increases
the network life time. The power ratio between direct and
relayed link () is optimized to achieve this aim. The value
of is evaluated analytically and is compared with simulation
results. The channel capacity with the new power allocation
scheme is also compared with conventional equal power
cooperative scheme and non-cooperative single-input single-
output scheme (SISO). In addition, the relay positioning that
maximizes the capacity using the proposed power allocation
scheme is also discussed.
The rest of this paper is structured as follows. System
model and assumptions for cooperative relay channels are
introduced in Section II. Power allocation for efcient coop-
erative communication protocol is explained in Section III.
Section IV provides the analytical solution to nd the optimal
that minimizes the total transmitted energy consumption.
Simulation results demonstrating the marked energy saving
are presented in Section V. Capacity analysis is discussed in
section VI. Concluding remarks are drawn in Section VII.
II. SYSTEM MODEL
Fig. 1 illustrates the single relay cooperative system. Source
node (S) transmits information to destination node (D) directly
and also through the relay node (R). The conventional ANF
channel model is characterized by transmitting and receiving
in orthogonal frequency bands or time slots [2]. In this paper,
we consider the ANF scheme with the relay node transmitting
at the same frequency band as the source node, but in the next
time slot.
The channel

h
ij
between the i-th transmit and j-th receive
antenna is given by

h
ij
=
h
ij
_
PL
ij
(1)
where h
ij
is an independent identically distributed (i.i.d)
complex Gaussian random variable with zero mean and unit
variance. This describes the random fading effect of multipath
channels, and is assumed to be quasi-static at fading. The
path loss factor PL
ij
models the signal attenuation over
distance, and is given by
PL
ij
=
(4)
2
G
t
G
r

2
. (d
ij
)

= PL
o
(d
ij
)

(2)
where d
ij
is the distance between i-th transmitter and j-
th receiver, is the path loss exponent depending on the
propagation environment which is assumed to be the same
over all links, is the wavelength, and G
t
and G
r
are the
transmitter and receiver antenna gains respectively.
In the rst time slot, the source node broadcasts the signal to
destination and relay node. The received signal at destination
node directly from the source node is given by
y
sd
(t) =

E
s
x(t)
_
1
PL
sd
h
sd
+n
d1
(t) (3)
where x(t) is the transmitted signal from the source node at
time t, E
s
is the transmitted signal energy from source node,
h
sd
is the channel from the source to the destination node
that experiences a path loss of PL
sd
and, n
d1
(t) captures the
effect of the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) at the
destination.
Similarly, at the same time slot the relay node receives the
same signal from the source node, given by
y
sr
(t) =

E
s
x(t)
_
1
PL
sr
h
sr
+n
r
(t) (4)
where h
sr
is the channel from the source to the relay node
that experiences a path loss of PL
sr
, and n
r
(t) is the AWGN
at the relay node.
In the second time slot the signal received at relay node is
amplied by a factor

k
r
and forwarded to the destination
node given by
y
rd
(t) =
_
k
r
PL
rd
y
sr
(t) h
rd
+n
d2
(t)
(5)
where h
rd
is the channel from relay to destination node that
experiences a path loss of PL
rd
, and n
d2
(t) is the AWGN at
destination node.
The noise n
j
(t) at receiver j is modeled as zero mean
mutually independent circular symmetric complex Gaussian
random sequences with power spectral density (PSD) N
o
. Ex-
act channel state information (CSI) is assumed to be available
at the receiver only, and not at the transmitter. The transmitter
estimates path loss through the reverse link and is assumed to
be perfectly estimated.
III. COOPERATIVE COMMUNICATION WITH POWER
ALLOCATION
In conventional ANF the transmission power is equally
distributed between the direct and the relayed link which
can lead to high energy consumption to achieve particular
performance. By varying the energy ratio between the direct
and relayed link a considerable amount of energy can be saved
without affecting the quality of transmission and in effect
increases the network life-time.
In this section we analyze the power allocation for efcient
cooperative communication protocol. We dene the power dis-
tribution factor as the ratio of received energy at destination
node from the source node through relay link to the energy
received at destination through direct link. Mathematically it
can be written as
=
Rx Signal Energy (S R D)
Rx Signal Energy (S D)
=
(k
r
E
r
) /PL
rd
E
s
/PL
sd
=
(k
r
/PL
rd
) (E
s
/PL
sr
+N
o
)
E
s
/PL
sd
=
k
r
E
s
_
d
sd
d
rd
_

_
E
s
PL
sr
+N
o
_
(6)
where E
r
is the transmitted signal energy from the relay
node. For realistic bit error rates, the required signal-to-noise
ratio (SNR) will have E
s
/PL
sr
much larger than N
o
. Thus,
neglecting N
o
in (6) could simplify to
=
k
r
PL
o
_
d
sd
d
sr
d
rd
_

. (7)
If the is small then most of the signal energy ows directly
to destination from the source node. In other words, higher
transmission power is allocated to the source node than the
relay node. On the other hand, when is high, large amount
of energy ows to destination through the relay link than the
direct one. Substituting y
sr
(t) in (4) and k
r
in (7) into (5), we
get
y
rd
(t) =
_
k
r
PL
rd
y
sr
(t) h
rd
+ n
d2
(t)
=
_
k
r
E
s
PL
sr
PL
rd
x(t)h
sr
h
rd
+
_
k
r
PL
rd
h
rd
n
r
(t) + n
d2
(t)
=
_

PL
sd
E
s
x(t) h
sr
h
rd
+

_
d
sr
d
sd
_

h
rd
n
r
(t) +n
d2
(t). (8)
MRC is employed at the destination node where two received
signals, directly from the source node and through relay node
are combined. The received SNR of the direct link from the
source node at destination is given as

sd
=
E
s
PL
sd
N
o
. (9)
The received SNR of the source-relay link is

sr
=
E
s
PL
sr
N
o
(10)
and the received SNR of the relay-destination link becomes

rd
=
E
s
PL
sd
N
o

1 +
_
dsr
d
sd
_

. (11)
The total received SNR at destination node after MRC is given
by

total
=
sd
+
rd
(12)
=
E
s
PL
sd
N
o

1 +

1 +
_
d
sr
d
sd
_

. (13)
The total transmitted signal energy (E
T
) is dened as the sum
of transmitted energies from both the source and relay nodes
and is given by
E
T
= E
s
+E
r
= E
s
+
E
s
k
r
PL
sr
= E
s
_
1 +
k
r
PL
sr
_
= E
s
_
1 +
_
d
rd
d
sd
_

_
. (14)
IV. OPTIMAL POWER ALLOCATION FACTOR
In the previous section, we presented the signal model
for cooperative communication with power allocation. In this
section the value of energy distribution factor that achieves
best performance with least total transmitted energy consump-
tion will be determined analytically. Assuming magnitude of
channels h
ij
to be Rayleigh faded, the probability of error at
high SNR region averaged over channel statistics is given by
[16]
P
e

3
4
1

sd
_
1

sr
+
1

rd
_
. (15)
It clearly shows that using single relay in cooperative network,
diversity order of 2 is achieved. Substituting the values of
sd
,

sr
and
rd
into above equation
P
e
=
3
4
_
PL
sd
N
o
E
s
_
2
_
1

+ 2
_
d
sr
d
sd
_

_
.
(16)
Rearranging the (16) to get the value of E
s
E
s
= PL
sd
N
o

3
4P
e
_
1

+ 2
_
d
sr
d
sd
_

_
.
(17)
Substituting the value of E
s
into (14), we obtain the total
transmitted energy to be
E
T
= N
o
PL
sd

3
4P
e
_
1

+ 2
_
d
sr
d
sd
_

__
1 +
_
d
rd
d
sd
_

_
.
(18)
To minimize E
T
with respect to (w.r.t.) , we take the
derivative of (18) w.r.t. and set it to be zero
dE
T
d
= 0. (19)
Solving (19), we obtain

1
2
2
_
1

+ 2
_
d
sr
d
sd
_

_
1/2
_
1 +
_
d
rd
d
sd
_

_
+
_
d
rd
d
sd
_

+ 2
_
d
sr
d
sd
_

= 0. (20)
Equation (20) can be simplied to
4
_
d
sr
d
sd
_

2
+
_
d
sd
d
rd
_

= 0. (21)
Solving (21), we have
=
1
8
_
d
sr
d
sd
_

_
1 +
_
d
rd
d
sd
_
/2

_
d
rd
d
sd
_

+ 16
_
d
sr
d
sd
_

_
. (22)
The above expression can be used to nd the optimal that
gives the best performance with minimum total transmitted
energy consumption from the separation between the source,
relay and destination nodes.
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
10
6
10
5
10
4
10
3
10
2
10
1
10
0

total
(dB)
B
E
R


= 0
= 1
= 10
Fig. 2. BER performances of cooperative MIMO system as a function of

total
for different values of .
V. SIMULATION RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
In this section, we present the analytical results we derived
in Section IV, and validate it using simulated results.
The QPSK modulation scheme is used in the analysis
and simulation. To obtain reasonable values of SNR, the
transmitted signal from source node is amplied by

PL
sd
to compensate the path loss. Table 1 summarizes the system
parameters for all simulations. Solving (22), the value of is
found to be approximately 4.4.
TABLE I
SYSTEM PARAMETERS
d
sd
= 200m = 3.5
dsr = 100m GtGr = 5dBi
d
rd
= 100m fc = 2.5GHz
frame size = 200 symbols
No
2
= -174dBm/Hz
Fig. 2 presents the bit error rate (BER) performance com-
parison for different values of . High BER is observed when
= 0. This is because only the direct link between source
and destination node is active and there is no transmission
through the relay link. When increases, the required total
SNR to achieve a certain BER decreases. Until reaches a
threshold, after which required total SNR increases because of
high amplication of the relay noise.
Fig. 3 shows the simulated BER as a function of at E
T
=
72dB Joules. It can be observed that BER decreases as
increases until a minimum is achieved, after which it starts to
increase. The at which the minimum BER is achieved in
our simulation is approximately 5, as seen in the gure.
The simulated and analytical results of the total transmitted
energy as a function of at BER = 10
3
are shown in Fig.
4. We compare the two results and show that the two sets
0 5 10 15
10
4
10
3
10
2
10
1

B
E
R
Fig. 3. Simulated BER as a function of at E
T
= 72dB Joules.
0 5 10 15
74
72
70
68
66
64
62
60

E
T

(
d
B

J
o
u
l
e
s
)


Analytical
Simulated
Fig. 4. Simulated and analytically calculated E
T
as a function of at BER
= 10
3
.
of values t well. Analytically we obtain a minimum E
T
at = 4.4, where it is approximately 6 in the simulated
results. The difference between them could be due to the
assumptions that are made in deriving the probability of error
for single relay cooperative network [16]. Nonetheless, the
total transmitted energy is close to the empirical result with
only 3.3% difference at = 4.4.
VI. CAPACITY ANALYSIS
In this section, the capacity of the proposed power allocation
cooperative communication scheme is presented and compare
with conventional equal power allocation in cooperative, and
non-cooperative SISO scheme. Given the channel information
at receiver, the channel capacity of the proposed system can
be calculated as [2]
C =
1
2
log
2
(1 +
sd
+
srd
) (23)
where

srd
=

sr

rd

sr
+
rd
+ 1
. (24)
Fig.5 shows the channel capacity of proposed power allo-
cation and conventional equal power allocation schemes as
a function of source-relay distance at E
T
= 72dB Joules.
The capacity for non-cooperative scheme is also presented.
The sum of the distance from source to relay and relay to
destination is kept constant and is equal to the distance from
source to destination node, which is 200m. From the Fig.5,
it can be seen that the proposed power allocation scheme
has the highest capacity while the total transmitted energy
is minimum over all distances. The gure also shows that
the non-cooperative system has the lowest capacity. It is also
observed that the capacity is fairly sensitive to the relative
position of the relay node and thus we can determine the relay
position where capacity is maximized.
VII. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, a novel power allocation scheme for efcient
cooperative communication system over channel with path
loss and fading is presented. The ratio of received relay link
power to direct link () is selected such that the total energy
consumption is minimized while maintaining quality of the
received signal. The value of this power distribution factor
is calculated analytically and comparable result is obtained
using simulation. The analysis and simulations in this paper
assists to determine the position of the relay node where
the capacity is maximum while the energy consumption is
minimum with no effect on the quality of transmission. It also
provides the direction for further study about relay selection
and positioning. In this paper the power allocation scheme
is presented for single relay scenario, but we are currently
extending it to multiple relays environment.
REFERENCES
[1] D. Gesbert, M. Sha, S. Da-shan, P. Smith, and A. Naguib, From theory
to practice: an overview of mimo space-time coded wireless systems,
IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, vol. 21, no. 3, pp.
281302, April 2003.
[2] J. Laneman, D. Tse, and G. Wornell, Cooperative diversity in wireless
networks: Efcient protocols and outage behavior, IEEE Transactions
on Information Theory, vol. 50, no. 12, pp. 30623080, Dec. 2004.
[3] J. Laneman and G. Wornell, Distributed space-time-coded protocols
for exploiting cooperative diversity in wireless networks, IEEE Trans-
actions on Information Theory, vol. 49, no. 10, pp. 24152425, Oct.
2003.
[4] A. Sendonaris, E. Erkip, and B. Aazhang, User cooperation diversity,
Part I: System description, IEEE Transactions on Communications,
vol. 51, no. 11, pp. 19271938, Nov. 2003.
[5] , User cooperation diversity, Part II: Implementation aspects and
performance analysis, IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 51,
no. 11, pp. 19391948, Nov. 2003.
[6] T. Hunter and A. Nosratinia, Diversity through coded cooperation,
IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 283
289, Feb. 2006.
0 50 100 150 200
42.5
43
43.5
44
44.5
45
d
sr
(meters)
C
h
a
n
n
e
l

C
a
p
a
c
i
t
y

(
b
p
s
/
H
z
)


Noncooperative scheme
Equal power allocation cooperative scheme
Proposed power allocation cooperative scheme
Fig. 5. Capacity comparison with different energy allocation schemes at
E
T
= 72dB Joules.
[7] A. Nosratinia, T. Hunter, and A. Hedayat, Cooperative communication
in wireless networks, IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 42, no. 10,
pp. 7480, Oct. 2004.
[8] T. Cover and A. Gamal, Capacity theorems for the relay channel, IEEE
Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 25, no. 5, pp. 572584, Sep
1979.
[9] S. Sohaib and D. K. C. So, Asynchronous polarized cooperative mimo
communication, in IEEE 69th Vehicular Technology Conference, April
2009.
[10] D. Brennan, Linear diversity combining techniques, Proceedings of
the IEEE, vol. 91, no. 2, pp. 331356, Feb 2003.
[11] I. Akyildiz, W. Su, Y. Sankarasubramaniam, and E. Cayirci, A survey
on sensor networks, IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 40, no. 8,
pp. 102114, Aug 2002.
[12] S. Cui, A. Goldsmith, and A. Bahai, Energy-efciency of mimo and
cooperative mimo techniques in sensor networks, IEEE Journal on
Selected Areas in Communications, vol. 22, no. 6, pp. 10891098, Aug.
2004.
[13] Z. Chen and C. Yang, Energy efciency of cooperative diversity at
phy layer in wireless sensor networks, 8th International Conference on
Signal Processing, vol. 4, pp. , 16-20 2006.
[14] Z. Jingmei, Z. Qi, S. Chunju, W. Ying, Z. Ping, and Z. Zhang, Adaptive
optimal transmit power allocation for two-hop non-regenerative wireless
relaying system, IEEE 59th Vehicular Technology Conference, vol. 2,
pp. 12131217 Vol.2, May 2004.
[15] W. Su, A. K. Sadek, and K. J. R. Liu, Cooperative communication
protocols in wireless networks: Performance analysis and optimum
power allocation, Wireless Personal Communications, vol. 44, no. 2,
pp. 181217, January 2008.
[16] A. Ribeiro, X. Cai, and G. Giannakis, Symbol error probabilities for
general cooperative links, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communica-
tions, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 12641273, May 2005.