On the Performance Analysis of Multirelay Cooperative Diversity Systems With Channel Estimation Errors

In this paper, we investigate the performance of an amplify-and-forward (AF) cooperative diversity system with multiple relays in the presence of channel estimation errors. We consider both conventional relaying (in which all relay nodes participate in the relaying phase) and opportunistic relaying (in which only a single relay is allowed to participate). We derive closed-form expressions for error probability, outage probability, and ergodic channel capacity. The derivations are confirmed through Monte Carlo simulations. We further deploy the derived expressions to obtain optimal power allocation rules for performance improvements.