Analysis of Cooperative Hybrid ARQ with Adaptive Modulation and Coding on a Correlated Fading Channel

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the performance of cooperative hybrid ARQ systems with adaptive modulation and coding over correlated fading channels, highlighting the impact of channel correlation on packet loss and throughput.

Contribution

It introduces a Markov channel model to evaluate the effects of temporal correlation on cooperative HARQ systems with AMC, extending prior analyses that assumed independent fading.

Findings

Channel correlation significantly affects HARQ performance.

Cooperative systems outperform non-cooperative ones in correlated channels.

Performance metrics depend on the degree of channel correlation.

Abstract

In this study, a cross-layer design which combines adaptive modulation and coding (AMC) and hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) techniques for a cooperative wireless network is investigated analytically. Previous analyses of such systems in the literature are confined to the case where the fading channel is independent at each retransmission, which can be unrealistic unless the channel is varying very fast. On the other hand, temporal channel correlation can have a significant impact on the performance of HARQ systems. In this study, utilizing a Markov channel model which accounts for the temporal correlation, the performance of non-cooperative and cooperative networks are investigated in terms of packet loss rate and throughput metrics for Chase combining HARQ strategy.