Performance analysis of amplify-and-forward cooperative diversity with multiple-antenna nodes via analog network coding

Network coding (NC), which works in the network layer, is an effective technology to improve the network throughput, by allowing the relay to encode the information from different users and ensuring the destination to retrieve the desired information. Employing network coding technique in a cooperative network can improve the network performance further. In this paper, we introduce analog network coding (ANC) to a simple two-user cooperative diversity network, which adopts amplify-and-forward (AF) mode and all nodes use multiple antennas. The impact of the number of antenna on the system achievable rate is investigated. And the bit error rate (BER) performances of the traditional relay cooperative network and the cooperative network based on analog network coding under different propagation conditions are discussed. The simulation results show that the performance of the traditional cooperative network has improved significantly due to the employ of network coding.