Maximum signal-to-interference-and-noise-ratio combiner for wireless regenerative relaying systems

A maximum signal-to-interference-and-noise-ratio (SINR) combiner was proposed for decode-and-forward relaying systems to improve their performances. By introducing the normalized correlation coefficient, an equivalent end-to-end Gaussian link for the source-relay-destination link is computed, and then the maximum SINR combiner is deduced at the destination. The proposed maximum SINR combiner provides more reliable soft information and thus improves the bit error rate performance. Analysis proves that the proposed combiner can be applied to any modulation schemes. Simulation results further demonstrate its advantage over other existing diversity combiners.