Joint Power Allocation, Equalization, and Relay Selection for MIMO Relay Networks With Multipath Receptions

Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) relays can improve cell coverage and data throughput for wireless networks. The key challenge for the success of MIMO relay networks is effectively managing the intersymbol interference (ISI) and multiantenna interference (MAI) in multipath channels. In this paper, equalize-and-forward (EF) relaying strategies are employed to mitigate the interference by jointly optimizing equalizer weights and power allocation for dual-hop MIMO relay networks. Two scenarios with different channel state information (CSI) knowledge are investigated: 1) full CSI at the relays and 2) only backward CSI at the relays and the destination. By considering CSI availability and using the minimum-mean-square-error (MMSE) criterion, iterative algorithms are proposed for the joint design of equalizer weights and power allocation to resolve the interference problem. We then extend the design to a more general case, in which the direct link between the source and the destination is taken into account. Furthermore, two relay selection algorithms based on allocated power and MSE performance are investigated for the two scenarios, which attain a performance that is comparable to that of cases with brute-force search or without relay selection. The design framework can capture the impact of the available CSI at the relays and the destination on the performance of MIMO multirelay networks with multipath receptions.