Abstract:

Cooperative communication is a buzz word in research community today. It enables nodes to achieve spatial extensive investigations have been directed to closely examine its performance by means of both analysis and simulation. However, the study of this new technology in an implementation based system is very limited. In this paper, we present two implementation approaches to demonstrate the viability of realizing cooperation at the MAC layer in a real environment. The paper describes the technical challenges encountered in each of the approaches, details the corresponding solution proposed, and compare the limitations and benefits of the approaches. The experimental measurements are reported, which not only help developing a deeper understanding of the protocol behavior but also confirm that the cooperative communication is a promising realistic technology for boosting the performance of next generation wireless networks.