Distributed Double-Differential Modulation for Cooperative Communications Under CFO

Abstract

When a terminal is recruited to cooperate with other neighboring terminals, its channel state and carrier frequency offset (CFO) may be unknown to the destination. Under these circumstances, this paper considers the use of distributed double-differential (DD) modulation, which simplifies receiver implementation because it by-passes channel and CFO estimation. Two double-differential codecs are proposed transmitting: i) across orthogonal channels using time-division multiplexing, achieving rate and error performance similar to that of co-located multi-antenna DD systems; or ii) simultaneously, benefiting from the distinct CFOs across terminals and bypassing the need of ordering protocols. Both (i)-(ii) approaches are considered in adaptive- and selective-relaying cooperation protocols demonstrating that maximum spatial diversity is achievable. Simulations corroborate the theoretical error performance claims.