Distributed coding techniques for cooperative cellular networks
Cooperation between the nodes of a wireless network is one of the hottest research topics in the telecommunication field. Advances in the field of coding theory make also possible the design of near Shannon limit codes. Due to these facts, one of the promising ways to improve the performances of the wireless networks is by using the distributed coding techniques. These techniques, combined with network coding techniques proved to achieve great bit error rate (BER) and block error rate (BLER) performance. The goal of this thesis is to study, analyze and evaluate some distributed coding schemes, which can be employed in cooperative cellular networks. Three distributed coding schemes, intended for two cooperative topologies, have been studied. The first considered scheme is intended for the one source – one relay cooperation topology and is based on turbo codes. This scheme was analyzed using EXIT charts and the BER and BLER performances were evaluated by computer simulations. The other two schemes are intended for the two sources – one relay cooperation topology, for the uplink (UL) direction. The first one uses the hard network coding concept and the BER and BLER performances are evaluated by computer simulations. A theoretical computation of the BLER was also developed. The second one, uses the soft network coding concept and was proposed to reduce the complexity of the first one. The BER and BLER performances were evaluated by computer simulations.
