IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 58, NO.
4, MAY 2009
Effect of Channel-Estimation Error on BER
Performance in Cooperative Transmission
Seungyoup Han, Student Member, IEEE,
Seongwoo Ahn, Student Member, IEEE,
Eunsung Oh, Student Member, IEEE, and
Daesik Hong, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—In this paper, a framework for evaluating the bit-error-rate
(BER) performance of amplify-and-forward (AF) relay-assisted coopera-
tive transmission is provided in the presence of imperfect channel estima-
tion. First, the AF relaying is classified into two cases—a variable gain
and a fixed gain. For each case, the closed-form average BER is derived
by using the moment-generating function (MGF) of the effective output
SNR, which quantifies the SNR penalty due to the noisy channel estimate.
Moreover, the asymptotic BER bound is also provided at a high SNR
regime for the insight of our approach. In particular, the effect of the
feedforward delay on informing the source–relay channel estimate as to the
destination is presented in the variable-gain relay. Numerical investigation
shows that the analytic result makes an exact match with the simulation,
and the comparative superiority between the fixed- and variable-gain relay
is discussed.
Index Terms—Channel estimation, cooperative diversity, maximum
ratio combining.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Recently, cooperative communications have gotten a great deal of
attention due to their ability to exploit the inherent spatial diversity in
relay channels [1]. To obtain the full potential of the cooperative diver-
sity, accurate estimation of channel state information (CSI) should be
a prerequisite. However, almost all the existing works assume that the
perfect channel knowledge is available, and relatively little attention
on the effect of imperfect channel estimation has been received for
relay networks. One major reason for the lack of research is the
common belief that the effects of the channel-estimation error for
relaying transmission can be explained by the same approach as the
point-to-point networks [2]. However, this is only valid for decode-
and-forward relaying, which is independently conducted for each link
of relay transmission. On the other hand, in amplify-and-forward
(AF) relaying, a cascaded channel consisting of source-to-relay and
relay-to-destination links results in a differentiated effect of channel
estimation, according to the relay type and the channel-estimation
methods [3].
In this paper, the effect of the channel-estimation error on the bit-
error rate (BER) performance is investigated for AF relaying, which
is classified into variable- and fixed-gain types. For each type of relay,
different estimation schemes are employed, which are the separated
channel estimation and the composite channel estimation [4]. In the
variable-gain relay, to scale the instantaneous power, the relaying
path is disintegrated and separately estimated the source-to-relay and
Manuscript received February 26, 2008; revised August 18, 2008. First
published October 31, 2008; current version published April 22, 2009. This
work was supported by the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation
through the National Research Laboratory Program under Grant R0A-2007-
000-20043-0 and by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, Korea, under
the Information Technology Research Center support program supervised by
the Institute of Information Technology Assessment under Grant IITA-2008-
C1090-0803-0002. The review of this paper was coordinated by Dr. M. Dohler.
The authors are with the Information and Telecommunication Labora-
tory, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Yonsei University,
Seoul 120-749, Korea (e-mail: tinoasis@yonsei.ac.kr; swahn@yonsei.ac.kr;
eunsung.Oh@yonsei.ac.kr; daesikh@yonsei.ac.kr).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TVT.2008.2007644
0018-9545/$25.00 © 2008 IEEE
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2083
relay-to-destination channels. However, in the fixed gain relay, the
overall channel from the source to the destination is estimated at the
destination without a burden of channel estimation at relay. Hence,
we focus on investigating the effect of the channel-estimation error
on BER performance according to the relay types, together with their
specific estimation methods. The main contributions of this paper are
summarized as follows.
• Closed-form expressions on the average BER of the cooperative
transmission with imperfect channel estimation are derived for
both types of relay. Asymptotic bounds are also derived at a high
SNR regime for obtaining an intuition of the effect of the channel-
estimation error.
• For each relay type, the effective SNR is presented in the presence
of the channel-estimation error. In the variable gain relay, the
effective SNR is demonstrated to be modeled by the harmonic
mean statistics for independent exponential variables like the
SNR under perfect estimation. On the other hand, for the fixed
gain relay, the effective SNR is evaluated by using Gaussian
approximation to describe the channel-estimation error and
noise.
• The effect of feedforward delay on informing the source-to-
relay link channel estimate to the destination is investigated.
The performance of the variable-gain relay is compared with
that of the fixed gain relay under a feedforward error environ-
ment, and the comparative superiority between the fixed- and
variable-gain relay is discussed from a standpoint of a practical
scenario.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section II describes
the system model of AF relaying. In Section III, the BER analysis and
asymptotic bounds of the variable- and fixed-gain relays are provided.
The numerical results are presented in Section IV, and concluding
remarks are given in Section V.
II. S YSTEM M ODEL
Consider an AF relay-assisted transmission where a source S trans-
mits to a destination D with the help of K relays R. To prevent
the relays from transmitting on interfering channels, we allocate a
different channel for each transmission. The source node broadcasts
its information to the destination and K relays in the first phase. In the
second phase, all relays forward the scaled versions of their received
signal to the destination. Then, the received signals of the destination
from the direct and relay links can, respectively, be written as

ys = Es hs x + zs
yk = h2,k αk rk + z2,k , ∀k = 1, 2, . . . , K (1)
√
where rk = Es h1,k x + z1,k is the received signal at the kth relay,
and Es is the transmitted symbol energy of the source. hs , h1,k ,
and h2,k denote the channel coefficients for the direct link and both
side links of the kth relay. The channel coefficient hi , where i ∈
[s, (1, k), (2, k)], is assumed to be distributed as CN (0, Ωi ).1 The
additive noise zi is also distributed as CN (0, Ni ). Depending on the
type of the AF relay, there are two different choices of αk , which are
given by

αk,v = E / (Es |h1,k |2 + N1,k ) (2a)
 k
αk,f = Ek /(Es Ωk + N1,k ) (2b)
1 CN (a, b) denotes a complex Gaussian distribution with mean a and
variance b.
2084 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 58, NO. 4, MAY 2009

where Ek is the symbol energy that is transmitted by the kth re- by Es |ĥs |2 /N
√ s , and √
the channel-estimation error and noise part, which
lay. Because αk,f is constant, while αk,v varies depending on the is given by Es ĥ∗s ( Es es + zs )/Ns . From the properties of ĥs , es ,
instantaneous channel, the relays using αk,v and αk,f are defined as and zs , which are mutually independent, we can obtain the effective
the variable- and fixed-gain relays, respectively. SNR for Ds as

Es |ĥs |2 γ̂s
III. BER A NALYSIS W ITH THE γseff = 2
= 2
(5)
C HANNEL -E STIMATION E RROR Es σE,s + Ns Es σE,s /Ns + 1

Let the estimate of the S–R link channel be ĥ1,k for the kth relay where γ̂s : = Es |ĥs |2 /Ns is the estimated SNR of the direct
link. We assume that h1,k and ĥ1,k are jointly ergodic and stationary link. Then, the average effective SNR is given by E[γseff ] := γ̄seff =
Gaussian processes. Also, assuming the orthogonality between the Es (Ωs − σE,s 2
) / (Es σE,s2
+ Ns ). From the resulting γ̄seff , the effec-
channel estimate and the estimation error, the following relation can tive SNR is confirmed to be reduced by two separate mechanisms.
be obtained: First, the effective SNR is reduced by increased noise from Ns to
2
Es σE,s + Ns . Second, the effective SNR is reduced because the
h1,k = ĥ1,k + e1,k (3) estimated channel has a lower variance than that of the true channel,
namely, Ωs − σE,s 2
instead of Ωs .
where e1,k is the channel-estimation error, which is distributed as 2) SNR for a Relay Link with an Estimation Error: Similar to (4),
CN (0, σE1,k
2
= E[|h1,k |2 ] − E[|ĥ1,k |2 ]). Therefore, ĥ1,k is also dis- the combiner output of the kth relay link with the channel-estimation
tributed as CN (0, Ω1,k − σE1,k
2 2
). Note that σE1,k is a parameter that error, which is indicated by Dk , is given by
captures the quality of the channel estimation and can be appropriately √
chosen depending on the channel dynamics and estimation schemes. Ek ĥ∗1,k ĥ∗2,k   
Dk = Es αk,v ĥ1,k + e1,k
Throughout this paper, the above definition is applied to the S–D and |ĥ1,k |Nk tot
R–D links.
    
· ĥ2,k + e2,k x + αk,v ĥ2,k + e2,k z1,k + z2,k . (6)
A. Variable-Gain Relay
Then,
√ (6) can be √ decomposed into the signal part, which is given by
Since the variable-gain relay estimates and tracks h1,k for instan- αkv E0 |ĥ1,k |2 Ek |ĥ2,k |2 /(|ĥ1,k |Nktot ), and the channel-estimation
taneous power scaling, the relay node needs to be equipped with the error and noise parts, which are, respectively, written as
channel estimator. In other words, the channels of S–D and R–D links
√ √
should be estimated separately. The relay obtains an estimate ĥ1,k αk,v E0 ĥ∗1,k Ek ĥ∗2,k
through pilot symbols and sends this estimate to the destination via Ek =
|ĥ1,k |Nktot
a feedforward control channel. A clean pilot symbol should also be
 
inserted so that ĥ2,k can be later estimated at the destination. In this × ĥ1,k e2,k + ĥ2,k e1,k + e1,k e2,k (7)
section, the feedforward channel is assumed to be instantaneous and √
error free, and then this assumption is removed for considering a more Ek ĥ∗1,k ĥ∗2,k
Nk =
practical environment in Section III-C. |ĥ1,k |Nktot
With the knowledge of the estimates ĥs , ĥ1,k , and ĥ2,k , the  
destination detects the transmitted symbols by jointly combining × αk,v ĥ2,k z1,k + αk,v e2,k z1,k + z2,k . (8)
the received signals ys from the direct link and yk from all the
relay links. The combiner output at thedestination can be writ- To obtain the effective SNR, we need the variance of the sum of
K K (7) and (8). This can be easily obtained using the property of mutual
ten as D = Ds + k=1 Dk = ωs ys + k=1 ωk yk , where ωs =
√ ∗
√ ∗ ∗ independence among ĥ1,k , ĥ2,k , e1,k , e2,k , z1,k , and z2,k . Thus, the
Es ĥs /Ns and ωk = Ek ĥ1,k ĥ2,k /(|ĥ1,k |Nktot ). The total noise
effective SNR for the kth relay link is given by (9), shown at the
power on the kth branch is defined as Nktot := (1 + Ek |ĥ2,k |2 / 2
bottom of the page. In (9), β := Es σE1,k 2
Es σE2,k 2
+ Ek σE2,k N1,k +
(Es |ĥ1,k |2 + N1,k )N2,k [5]. N1,k N2,k . The form of the effective SNR in (9) is not easily tractable.
1) SNR for a Direct Link with an Estimation Error: Using (3), the However, at the practical channel-estimation environment,2 β ap-
combiner output of the S–D link with the channel-estimation error, proaches to N1,k N2,k . Then, (9) can be approximated at a high SNR
which is denoted as Ds , is given by [5] as
√  
Es ĥ∗s γ̂1,k γ̂2,k
Ds = Es (ĥs + es )x + zs γkeff ≈     (10)
Ns 1+ Ek
σ2 γ̂1,k + 1 + Es
σ2 γ̂2,k
N2,k E2,k N1,k E1,k
√  
Es |ĥs |2 Es ĥ∗s
= x+ Es es x + zs . (4) 2 Through a Monte Carlo simulation, we observed that the MSE between (9)
Ns Ns
2
and (10) is only 0.025 at σE1,k 2
= σE2,k = 10−1 and converges to zero at
Without loss of generality, assuming that x = 1, Ds can be decom- 2 2 −2
σE1,k = σE2,k ≤ 10 under an overall SNR. Therefore, this approximation
posed into the summation of two parts: the signal part, which is given can be safely used for any practical purposes.

Es |ĥ1,k |2 Ek |ĥ2,k |2
γkeff =     (9)
Es |ĥ1,k |2 2
Ek σE2,k + N2,k + Ek |ĥ2,k |2 Es σE1,k
2
+ N1,k + β

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 58, NO. 4, MAY 2009 2085


where γ̂1,k := Es |ĥ1,k |2 /N1,k and γ̂2,k := Ek |ĥ2,k |2 /N2,k are the where Δ = (α1 − α2 )2 − 2(α1 + α2 )s + s2 . Furthermore, if α1
estimated SNRs of both links of the kth relay channel. The form of and α2 go to zero, then the MGF of Z can be approximated as
the effective SNR given in (10) is related to the harmonic mean of the α1 + α2
instantaneous effective SNRs, i.e., MZ (s) ≈ − . (14)
s
γ̂1,k Proof: See the proof in [8, Th. 4]. 
eff
γ1,k :=  2
 Now, let us apply the result of the theorem to the harmonic mean
1 + Es σE1,k /N1,k eff eff
of two RVs X1,k = γ1,k and X2,k = γ2,k , which are independent
γ̂2,k eff eff
exponential RVs with parameters α1,k = 1/γ̄1,k and α2,k = 1/γ̄2,k ,
eff
γ2,k :=  . (11)
2
1 + Ek σE2,k /N2,k respectively. With the closed-form MGF expression in the theorem,
the average BER in (12) can be determined as
2
−1
π
Hence, with fading realizations h1,k and h2,k , we can find that
eff eff 2 gPSK
γ1,k and γ2,k are independent and exponentially distributed with
Pe = 1+
mean respectively given as E[γ1,k eff eff
] := γ̄1,k = Es (Ω1,k − σE1,k
2
)/ π log2 M αs sin2 φ
2
(Es σE1,k + N1,k ) and E[γ2,k ] := γ̄2,k = Ek (Ω2,k − σE2,k
eff eff 2
)/  0
2
(Ek σE2,k + N2,k ). Inspecting our analytic results, the following
K
(α1,k − α2,k )2 + (α1,k + α2,k ) sin
gPSK
2φ
·
observations can be made. Δ2
k=1
• We can deduce that the effective SNR of the relay link due to 2α1,k α2,k gPSK
the channel-estimation error is reduced by two separate mech- +
Δ3 sin2 φ
anisms. First, the effective SNR is reduced by an increased gPSK 2
(α1,k + α2,k + sin 2 φ + Δ)
noise variance due to the noisy estimation. Second, the effective × ln dφ (15)
SNR is reduced by the signal power reduction due to the lower 4α1,k α2,k
variance of the estimated channel compared with that of the true
channel. where αs = 1/γ̄seff . However, it remains difficult to understand the
• It is interesting to observe which link is dominant to the effective BER performance using (15), although it can be calculated numeri-
SNR under the channel-estimation error. From β in (9), it can cally. In the following, we try simplifying the BER formulation by
be found that the R–D link is more dominant based on the utilizing the MGF approximation in (14) of the theorem to reveal the
2
cross correlation (Ek σE2,k N1,k ) between the estimation error asymptotic performance. According to the MGF approximation of (14)
eff eff
of the R–D link and the noise of the S–R link. It is the noise with α1,k = 1/γ̄1,k and α2,k = 1/γ̄2,k , the asymptotic bound of (15)
enhancement due to the channel-estimation error of the R–D can be expressed in a high SNR regime as
K

π
link. However, in a practical estimation environment, this cross 2
correlation can be ignored. Hence, we can deduce that the S–R 2 1 α1,k + α2,k
Pe ≈ 1+gPSK
dφ
and R–D links of the relay channel have the same influence on π log2 M αs sin2 φ k=1
gPSK / sin2 φ
the effective SNR of the relay link. 0

G
K
3) Derivation of the BER Performance: The average BER de- ≈ αs (α1,k + α2,k )
eff K+1
pends on the summation of the effective SNRs, i.e., γtotal = γseff + gPSK
K eff k=1
γ , which is evaluated in (5) and (10). Using an approach

1
k=1 k K
G 1 1
based on the moment-generating function (MGF) [6], the average BER = K+1
· eff eff
+ eff
(16)
for the M-ary phase-shift keying (PSK) modulated transmission is gPSK γ̄s γ̄1,k γ̄2,k
k=1
obtained as follows:

π/2
π where G := (2/πlog2 M ) sin2Kφdφ = ((2K −1)!!/(2K)!!)logM 2
 2

K 0
2
Pe = Ms (s) Mk (s)dφ (12) [9], in which (2K)!! = 2 · 4 . . . · (2K) and (2K − 1)!! = 1 · 3 . . . ·
π log2 M (2K − 1). From (16), it is clear how the effect of imperfect CSI has
k=1
0
an influence on the average BER performance. It is also noted that,
where s := −gPSK / sin φ and gPSK := sin2 (π/M ). From regardless of the channel-estimation error, a diversity order K + 1 is
the MGF of an exponential RV, the MGF corresponding to the still maintained, as in the case of the ideal channel estimation.
S–D link is given by Ms (s) = (1 − sγ̄seff )−1 . Then, to find the
average BER in (12), we need to find a closed-form expression for B. Fixed-Gain Relay
the MGF of γkeff , which is the harmonic mean of γ1,k eff eff
and γ2,k for In the fixed-gain relay, since the individual estimate of h1,k is not
all k ∈ [1, k]. This has been investigated in [5] and [7]; however, it required, it is possible to reduce the burden of the channel estimation at
is hard to use in revealing an intuition of performance. However, the relay. Therefore, the overall channels from the source to the destination
following theorem gives a simple closed-form MGF expression for are directly estimated at the destination. Under this scenario, the
the harmonic mean of two independent exponential RVs [8]. received signal of the destination through the kth relay link can be
Theorem: Let X1 and X2 be two independent exponential RVs written as
with parameters α1 and α2 , respectively. Then, the MGF of Z = 
X1 X2 /(X1 + X2 ) is given by yk = E0 αk,f h1,k h2,k x + αk,f h2,k z1,k + z2,k . (17)
Defining hk := h1,k h2,k as the composite channel of the kth relay
(α1 − α2 )2 − (α1 + α2 )s
MZ (s) = link and using (3), we can rewrite (17) as
Δ2  
2α1 α2 s (α1 + α2 − s + Δ)2 yk = E0 αk,f ĥk x + E0 αk,f ek x + αk,f h2,k z1,k + z2,k (18)
− ln (13)   
Δ3 4α1 α2 :=zk

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2086 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 58, NO. 4, MAY 2009

2 To have further insight into the performance over the composite

where ek is a channel-estimation error with variance σE,k , and zk
is approximated as zero-mean complex Gaussian noise with vari- channel fading, the upper bound of (22) can be obtained by replacing
2 2 2 φ = π/2 as
ance E0 αk,f σE,k + αk,f Ω2,k N1,k + N2,k by utilizing the Gaussian
approximation for the estimation error and noise [3]. In a high SNR

regime, the received effective SNR of the kth relay link is approxi-
K
1
mated as Pe ≤ logM 2 (1 + gPSK γ̄0 )−1 Gk (23)
γ̄keff
k=1

E0 Ek |ĥk |2
γkeff = 2 where Gk := exp(−1/gPSK γ̄keff )Γ(0, 1/gPSK γ̄keff )/gPSK .
E0 Ek σE,k + Es Ω1,k N2,k + Ek Ω2,k N1,k + N1,k N2,k

γ̂k
≈ Es Ek
(19) C. Effect of the Feedforward Delay
σ2
N1,k N2,k E,k
+ γ̄1,k + γ̄2,k
For the variable gain relay, the developments, so far, have as-
sumed instantaneous and error-free feedforward. However, the ef-
where γ̄1,k : = Es Ω1,k /N1,k , γ̄2,k : = Ek Ω2,k /N2,k , and γ̂k : =
fective SNR of the variable gain relay can be additionally reduced
(Es /N1,k )(Ek /N2,k )|ĥk |2 . Similar to the derivation in Section III-A, when the feedforward delay is significant since the channel (h1,k ) is
the BER can be obtained by finding the MGF of the effective changed to a new state by the time the destination has the channel
SNR γkeff . For this, the probability density function (pdf) of |ĥk |2 estimate.
for the composite channel, which is |ĥ1,k |2 |ĥ2,k |2 , is required. First, Let h1,k (n) denote the S–R link channel at time instance n, which
we state the result on the distribution of the product of two Gamma is estimated at the relay and sent through a delayed feedforward path
variables [10]. to the destination. Thus, different from (3), we model h1,k (n) as [12]
Let X1 and X2 be independently distributed gamma RVs with pdf’s
f1 (x1 ; a1 , b1 ) and f2 (x2 ; a2 , b2 ), respectively. That is, f1 (x; a, b) = h1,k (n) = ρĥ1,k (n − d) + e1,k (n) + g1,k (n) (24)
(Γ(a)ba )−1 xa−1 e−x/b , where Γ(·) is the gamma function. Let
X∞= X1 X2 . The pdf of X can then be written as f (x) = where ĥ1,k (n − d) is the estimated channel that is delayed by d
0
f1 (y)f2 (x/y)dy/y. After some mathematical manipulations, time instances, and ρk is the correlation coefficient for the delayed
f (x) can be expressed as [10], [11] feedforward channel, which is given by
 
f (x) = 2xa2 −1 (Γ(a1 )Γ(a2 )(b1 b2 )a2 )−1 E ĥ1,k (n)ĥ1,k (n − d)
ρk =     
 a1 −a2   
E |ĥ1,k (n)|2 E |ĥ1,k (n − d)|2
× x/b1 b2 Ka1 −a2 2 x/b1 b2 (20)
 
E ĥ1,k (n)ĥ1,k (n − d)
where Kν is a modified Bessel function of the second kind of order ν. = . (25)
Ω1,k − σE1,k
2
Therefore, the pdf of y = |ĥ1,k |2 |ĥ2,k |2 , which is related to the
product of two exponential RVs, becomes f (y) =
distribution of the
Additional error that is incurred by the delay is modeled as
2(b1 b2 )−1 K0 (2 y/b1 b2 ), where b1 = 1/Ω1,k and b2 = 1/Ω2,k .
g1,k (n) = ĥ1,k (n) − ρk ĥ1,k (n − d), which is also zero-mean com-
Then, by using the pdf of |ĥ1,k |2 |ĥ2,k |2 , we can derive the MGF for plex Gaussian with variance (1 − ρ2k )(Ω1,k − σE1,k 2
). Using (24),
γkeff , i.e., we reconstruct (6) and can evaluate the effective SNR of the re-


 lay link with the channel-estimation error and the feedforward de-
1 1 1 lay as in (26), shown at the bottom of the page. Similarly to (11),
Mγ eff (s) = exp Ei (21)
k sγ̄keff sγ̄keff sγ̄keff (26) is also related to the harmonic mean of the effective SNRs as
follows:
where Ei(·) is the exponential integral function, which can be further
ρ2k γ̂1,k
rewritten in terms of an incomplete gamma function, i.e., Γ(0, x) = eff
γ1,k =  
−Ei(−x). This yields the final BER expression by inserting the MGF 1+ Es
σ2
N1,k E1,k
+ Es
N1,k
(1 − ρ2k ) Ω1,k − σE1,k
2

of the direct link and (21) into (12) as follows:

ρ2k γ̂2,k


π/2 −1
eff
γ2,k = . (27)
Ek
2 gPSK γ̄s 1+ ρ2 σ 2
N2,k k E2,k
Pe = 1+
π log2 M sin2 φ
0 eff eff
Hence, we can find that γ1,k and γ2,k are independent and expo-

K
sin φ 2

sin φ 2


sin φ 2
 nentially distributed with mean, respectively, given as E[γ1,k eff
] :=
· exp − Γ 0, dφ. γ̄1,k = ρk Es (Ω1,k −σE1,k )/(Es σE1,k +Es (1− ρk )(Ω1,k −σE1,k )+
eff 2 2 2 2 2
gPSK γ̄keff gPSK γ̄keff gPSK γ̄keff
k=1
N1,k ) and E[γ2,k eff eff
] := γ̄2,k = ρ2k Ek (Ω2,k − σE2,k
2
)/(ρ2k Ek σE2,k
2
+
(22) N2,k ). Comparing (27) with (11), the signal power of the effective

ρ2k γ̂1,k γ̂2,k

γkeff =  Ek σ 2
  Es σ 2 Es (1−ρ2 )(Ω1,k −σ 2 )
 (26)
E2,k E1,k k E1,k
1 + ρ2k N2,k
γ̂1,k + 1 + N1,k
+ N1,k
γ̂2,k

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 58, NO. 4, MAY 2009 2087

Fig. 1. Average BER of the cooperative system with one variable gain relay
as a function of the SNR for dSD : dSR : dRD = 1 : 1 : 1. The variance of
2
the estimation error is fixed as σE,i ∈ [0.001, 0.01, 0.1].
Fig. 2. Average BER of the cooperative system with one fixed gain relay as
a function of the SNR for dSD : dSR : dRD = 1 : 1 : 1. The variance of the
2
estimation error is fixed as σE,i ∈ [0.001, 0.01, 0.1].

SNRs of each link is observed to be reduced by the correlation

between the channel estimate and the delayed version of it. Moreover,
the effective SNR of the S–R link is additionally reduced by the
increased effective noise variance due to the feedforward delay.

IV. N UMERICAL R ESULTS

In this section, some numerical results are provided for illustrating
our theoretical analysis. We consider that the direct link is cooperated
with one relay under the quaternary phase-shift keying transmission.
The distance between S and D is normalized to 1. The channel
α/2 α/2
gains are modeled as h1,k = ξ1,k /d1,k and h2,k = ξ2,k /d2,k , where
ξi,k is a zero-mean complex Gaussian RV with a unit variance. For
path-loss exponent α = 3, d1,k and d2,k are the normalized distances
for S–R and R–D links, respectively. In our simulations, we use
two different models [12] for the channel-estimation error, which
can be defined as the MSE: 1) σE,i 2
, where i ∈ [s, (1, k), (2, k)], is
2
independent of the received SNR, and 2) σE,i is a decreasing function
of the received SNR. Fig. 3. Average BER of the cooperative system with one variable gain relay
In Figs. 1 and 2, the accuracy of our analytic results is investigated as a function of the SNR for dSD : dSR : dRD = 1 : 1 : 1 and 1 : 0.5 : 0.5.
by comparing them with the simulations. We assume a simple model The variance of the estimation error is modeled as a decreasing function of the
for the channel-estimation error, which is independent of the received received SNR.
2
SNR. The variance of estimation error σE,i varies from 0.001 to
0.1 in Figs. 1 and 2. The distance between different terminals is be dSD = dSR = dRD and dSD = 2dSR = 2dRD . For variable-gain
assumed identical. For variable gain relaying systems, the average relaying in Fig. 3 and fixed-gain relaying in Fig. 4, our approach
BER and the asymptotic bound in (15) and (16) are illustrated in makes a good match with the simulation. Different from Figs. 1 and 2,
Fig. 1. This figure shows exact matches between the analytic results the BER performance of relaying systems with and without the
of (15) and the simulations. Moreover, the asymptotic bound of (16) channel-estimation error is decreasing as a function of the SNR but
is matched tightly, particularly at a high SNR. The small difference in preserving a gap, irrespective of the SNR. This gap results from the
performance between the analysis and the simulation at large σEi,k is SNR loss due to incomplete combining from the channel-estimation
due to β in (8) being greater according to the estimation error. For fixed error. Since the estimation error is a decreasing function, the SNR loss
gain relaying systems, same investigations are performed in Fig. 2. In is also reduced with the SNR. Therefore, the SNR gap is preserved in
this figure, the analytic results of (22) and (23) are compared with the Figs. 3 and 4, whereas an irreducible error floor is illustrated in Figs. 1
simulations. and 2.
In Figs. 3 and 4, we assume that the variance of the estimation In Fig. 5, the combined effect of the channel-estimation error and
error is a decreasing function of the received SNR. This assumption the feedforward delay of variable-gain relays on the BER performance
makes intuitive sense. If a system is operating under a high SNR, is investigated. In this figure, the variance of the estimation error is de-
it should be able to achieve better accuracy in its estimate. The fined as a decreasing function of the SNR, and ρk varies from 0.9 to 1.
relation of the distance between different terminals is assumed to The ratio of the distance between different terminals is assumed to

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2088
Fig. 4. Average BER of the cooperative system with one fixed-gain relay as a
function of the SNR for dSD : dSR : dRD = 1 : 1 : 1 and 1 : 0.5 : 0.5. The
variance of the estimation error is modeled as a decreasing function of the
received SNR.
Fig. 5. Comparison of the average BER between systems with the variable-
gain relay and that of the fixed-gain relay as a function of the SNR for ds :
d1,k : d2,k = 1 : 0.7 : 0.7. The variance of the estimation error is modeled as
a decreasing function of the received SNR, and ρk ∈ [0.9, 0.99, 0.999, 1].
be dSD : dSR : dRD = 1 : 0.7 : 0.7. As we have known, the variable-
gain relaying system outperforms the fixed gain relaying system at
high ρk or low delay. However, at ρk ≤ 0.99, fixed gain relaying is
better than variable-gain relaying.3 The numerical results presented
here suggest that a much simpler scheme that uses the fixed-gain
relay can be the better choice in fast-fading channels, in which the
feedforward delay is significant.
3 The correlation is given by ρ = J (2πf τ ), where J is a Bessel
k 0 D 0
function of the first kind of order 0, fD is the maximum Doppler shift, and
τ is the feedforward delay. Then, under a carrier frequency of 2.4 GHz and a
pedestrian speed of 4.5 km/h, ρk = 0.99, which is translated to fD τ ≈ 0.01.
This corresponds to a delay of τ ≈ 1 ms, which can be achieved in practical
systems.
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 58, NO. 4, MAY 2009
V. C ONCLUSION
This paper has investigated the effect of channel-estimation error
on the cooperative transmission using variable and fixed gain relaying.
The exact closed-form BER and the asymptotic bound have been eval-
uated for both systems. Moreover, the feedforward error of the channel
estimate for the S–R link has been demonstrated to be a significant
factor in a practical environment. In various channel-estimation error
scenarios, our approach has been verified to make an exact match with
the simulation. Under the general cooperative diversity scheme, we
expect our theoretical results to be useful for further analysis and in
the evaluation of practical implementations.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank M. Collins for his assistance in
revising the English in this paper.
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