Exact Symbol Error Probability of a Cooperative Network in a Rayleigh-Fading Environment

In a distributed spatial diversity wireless system, not all antennas are located at one station as in classical transmit diversity systems, but are dispersed at different, possibly mobile, stations in the network. Transmit diversity is created when the selected stations assist a sender by relaying its information signal to the destination. In this letter, we present an exact average symbol error rate analysis for the distributed spatial diversity wireless system with K amplifying relays in a Rayleigh-fading environment. The average symbol error rate formula allows us to clearly illustrate the advantage that the distributed diversity system has in overcoming the severe penalty in signal-to-noise ratio caused by Rayleigh fading. Using simple bounds on the probability of error, we show that the cooperative network presented in this letter achieves full diversity order.