Decode-and-Forward Relaying via Standard AWGN Coding and Decoding

A framework is developed for decode-and-forward-based relaying using standard coding and decoding that are good for the single-input single-output (SISO) additive white Gaussian noise channel. The framework is applicable to various scenarios and is demonstrated for several important cases. Each of these scenarios is transformed into an equivalent Gaussian multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) common-message broadcast problem, which proves useful even when all links are SISO ones. Over the effective MIMO broadcast channel, a recently developed Gaussian MIMO common-message broadcast scheme is applied. This scheme transforms the MIMO links into a set of parallel SISO channels with no loss of mutual information, using linear pre-and post-processing combined with successive decoding. Over these resulting SISO channels, off-the-shelf scalar codes may be used.