Error rate analysis of AF-relay wireless networks under different SNR levels

This paper presents a new method for analyzing the Bit Error Rate (BER) performance of two-hop Amplify-and-Forward Multiple Relay (AF-MR) networks. This paper, considers, a flat-fading channel and a relay selection scheme to select a relay with the highest Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR). The method aims to unify the BER calculation under low, high and optimal SNR levels. Asymptotic BER (ABER) performance at high SNR value is calculated first, and standard expressions for exact BER (EBER) performance at low and optimal SNRs are then derived. The analytic method depends on the conventional BER (CBER) approach of one-hop communication systems. The optimal SNR is obtained by balancing energy efficiency and spectral efficiency. The proposed method is found to be effective for calculating the BER of AF-MR network performance under any SNR conditions. Moreover, it improves the accuracy of ABER performance by reducing disparity computation errors between ABER and EBER performances and this allows the BER of AF-MR networks to be accurately calculated using either ABER or EBER. The outcome expressions for the method are validated by simulation results. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.