Performance Analysis of a Path Selection Scheme in Multi-Hop Decode-and-Forward Protocol

In this letter, we find cumulative distribution function (CDF) and probability density function (PDF) of the generalized max-min Exponential random variable (RV) in terms of converging power series. By using the PDF of this RV, the average bit error rate (BER) of the max-min criterion based best path selection scheme in multi-hop decode-and-forward (DF) cooperative communication system over Rayleigh fading channels is analyzed. It is demonstrated by the analysis and simulation that max-min criterion based path selection works very well in the multi-hop DF cooperative system.