CoopMAX: a cooperative MAC with randomized distributed space time coding for an IEEE 802.16 network

摘要

Cooperative communication is a technique that can be employed to meet the increased throughput needs of next generation WiMAX systems. In a cooperative scenario, multiple stations can jointly emulate the antenna elements of a multi-input multi-output system in a distributed fashion. A framework for a randomized distributed space-time coding (“R-DSTC”) technique in the emerging relay-assisted WiMAX network, and the development of a cooperative medium access control (“MAC”) layer protocol, called CoopMAX, for R-DSTC deployment in an IEEE 802.16 system, is described. The technique described couples the MAC layer with the physical (PHY) layer for performance optimization. The PHY layer yields significant diversity gain, while the MAC layer achieves a substantial end-to-end throughput gain.