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2122 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 59, NO. 5, JUNE 2010
first-hop fading parameter or the product of the second-
hop fading parameter and the number of destinations.
5) We derive exact closed-form expressions for the moments
of the highest end-to-end SNR. Based on these new
statistical results, we evaluate other relevant statistics that
characterize the SNR distribution, such as the average
SNR and the amount of fading (AoF).
Our new analytical expressions have the additional merit of
characterizing t he single-user point-to-point dual-hop scenario
as a special case. Moreover, our generalized analysis serves
as a tool to examine the impact of unbalanced hops by tak-
ing into account different per-hop average faded SNRs and/or
different per-hop fading severities on the system performance.
Furthermore, a design criterion is presented to guarantee per-
formance improvements offered by opportunistic scheduling.
Specifically, by varying the per-hop transmission distances, our
results reveal the role of the relay location in determining the
multiuser advantage.
II. S
YSTEM DESCRIPTION
A. Cooperative Transmission and Channel Model
Consider the multiuser wireless relay communication system
depicted in Fig. 1(b). The source communicates with K desti-
nations via the cooperative link with the aid of a single AaF
relay. The direct link between the source and the destinations is
absent. The relay transmission is constrained to a half-duplex
mode, by dividing the transmission period into two consecutive
signaling intervals. In signaling interval 1, the source transmits
the signal to the relay; in signaling interval 2, the relay am-
plifies the received signal with a scaling gain factor and then
forwards the scaled replica toward the destination that has the
most favorable end-to-end channel quality.
We denote the average symbol energies available at the
source and the relay as E
S
and E
R
, respectively. Furthermore,
let the modulated signal transmitted by the source be denoted as
x. In signaling interval 1, the received signal at the relay from
the source can be represented as
y
r
=
E
S
d
−η
SR
αx + n
r
(1)
where α denotes the channel complex fading coefficient be-
tween the source and the relay, and n
r
is the additive white
Gaussian noise (AWGN) component with variance N
0
at the
relay. The path loss is incorporated in the signal propagation,
where d
SR
is the distance between the source and the relay, and
η is the path loss exponent. We define G as the scaling gain
applied at the relay. Hence, in signaling interval 2, the received
signal at the kth destination from the relay is expressed as
y
d
=
E
R
d
−η
RD
β
k
G
E
S
d
−η
SR
αx + n
r
+ n
d
k
(2)
where β
k
denotes the channel complex fading coefficient be-
tween the relay and the kth destination, n
d
k
is the AWGN com-
ponent with variance N
0
at the kth destination, and d
RD
is the
distance between the relay and the destination. Accordingly, the
equivalent instantaneous end-to-end SNR of the kth destination
γ
eq,k
can be obtained from (2) as
γ
eq,k
=
γ
1
γ
2,k
γ
2,k
+
1
G
2
N
0
(3)
where γ
1
= |α|
2
d
−η
SR
E
S
/N
0
, and γ
2,k
= |β
k
|
2
d
−η
RD
E
R
/N
0
are
the instantaneous faded SNRs of the first and second hop,
respectively. From (3), we note that γ
eq,k
is influenced by the
choice of G.
The pdf of the per-hop instantaneous faded SNR Z =
{γ
1
,γ
2,k
} follows a gamma distribution, i.e.,
f
Z
(γ)=
m
m
i
i
γ
m
i
−1
γ
m
i
i
Γ(m
i
)
e
−
m
i
γ
i
γ
(4)
where Γ(·) is the gamma function defined by [17, eq. (8.310.1)]
as Γ(x)=
∞
0
t
x−1
e
−t
dt. The average faded SNR of the first
and second hops is given by
γ
1
= E[γ
1
] and γ
2
= E[γ
2,k
],
respectively, where E[·] is the expectation. The fading param-
eter of the first and second hops is denoted as m
1
and m
2
,
respectively.
It is assumed that the destinations are located within the same
fading environment. In such a homogeneous environment, all
the destinations have the same per-hop fading severity m
2
and
per-hop average faded SNR
γ
2
. On the other hand, the dual-
hop transmission is assumed unbalanced, where the first and
second hops experience different per-hop average faded SNRs
(i.e.,
γ
1
= γ
2
) and/or different per-hop fading severities (i.e.,
m
1
= m
2
). This is typical in most relay applications, where
the relay and the destinations are located in different fading
environments.
The corresponding cdf of Z can be written as
F
Z
(γ)=
γ
m
i
,
m
i
γ
i
γ
Γ(m
i
)
=1−
Γ
m
i
,
m
i
γ
i
γ
Γ(m
i
)
(5)
where γ(·, ·) is the lower incomplete gamma function defined
by [17, eq. (8.350.1)], and Γ(·, ·) is the upper incomplete
gamma function defined by [17, eq. (8.350.2)].
B. Opportunistic Scheduling in Cooperative Transmission
Time-division multiple access (TDMA) is assumed to facil-
itate the sharing of the downlink channel among the multiple
destinations. Specifically, we adopt the opportunistic multiuser
scheduling proposed in [9]. In this policy, only one destination
with the highest instantaneous end-to-end SNR out of K des-
tinations is scheduled for transmission. This policy holds for a
number of time-slotted downlink multiuser systems including
Qualcomm’s HDR [18] and high-speed downlink packet access
[19]. In this case, if γ
s
denotes the highest instantaneous
end-to-end SNR of the scheduled destination (i.e., strongest
destination), then the policy is formulated as
γ
s
= max
1≤k≤K
{γ
eq,k
} (6)
where γ
eq,k
is defined in (3).