Performance Analysis of a Threshold-Based Relay Selection Algorithm in Wireless Networks

Relay selection is an effective method to realize the cooperative diversity gain in wireless networks. In this paper, we study a threshold-based single relay selection algorithm. A reasonable threshold value is set at each relay node, and the first relay with the instantaneous channel gain larger than the threshold will be se-lected to cooperate with the source. The exact and closed form expression for its outage probability is de-rived over independent, non-identically distributed (i. n. i. d) Rayleigh channels. The complexity of the algo-rithm is also analyzed in detail. Simulation results are presented to verify our theoretical analysis.