Performance Analysis for Cooperative Relaying in Diffusion-Based Molecular Communication

Molecular communications (MC) is a promising paradigm which utilizes molecules to implement communication among nano-machines. Cooperative relaying strategies can be used to extend communication distance and achieve reliable remote communications. In this paper, a two-hop diffusion-based molecular communication with three nano-machine nodes is considered. To mitigate the drawback of traditional cooperative relay strategies in diffusion-based MC, such as decode-and-forward and amplify-and-forward, an opportunistic cooperative relaying strategy is proposed. Closed-form expressions of bit error probability for these three cooperative relaying strategies and two molecular type schemes are derived. Analytical and simulation results show that opportunistic decode-amplify-forward relaying strategy with different type of molecules modulation achieve the best gain to implement reliable remote communications.