A comprehensive performance analysis of relay-aided CDMA communications over dissimilar fading channels

In this paper, bit error probability (BEP), outage probability (OP) and channel capacity (CC) of direct-sequence code-division multiple access systems with amplify-and-forward relaying are presented for different fading scenarios. In the first scenario, the source-destination link is assumed to experience Rayleigh fading while it is subject to Nakagami-m fading in the second scenario. The source-relay and relay-destination channels are considered to have Nakagami-m fading conditions in two scenarios. First, analytical expressions for the end-to end probability density function (PDF) are derived by using the convolution integral. Then, BEP, OP and CC are obtained based on these PDFs in terms of infinite series. Truncation error analyses are presented for different parameter values in order to show that truncation error arising from the infinite series is negligible. Simple and easy-to-compute asymptotic expressions are also introduced for BEP and OP in order to simplify the performance analysis in high signal-to-noise ratio region. Simulation results are provided to show the accuracy of the proposed approximate and asymptotic expressions.