Joint Transmit Diversity Optimization and Relay Selection for Multi-Relay Cooperative MIMO Systems Using Discrete Stochastic Algorithms

We propose a joint discrete stochastic optimization based transmit diversity selection (TDS) and relay selection (RS) algorithm for decode-and-forward (DF), cooperative multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems with a non-negligible direct path. TDS and RS are performed jointly with continuous least squares channel estimation (CE) without the need for inter-relay communication and linear minimum mean square error (MMSE) receivers are used at all nodes. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated via bit-error rate (BER) comparisons and diversity analysis, and is shown to converge to the optimum exhaustive solution.