Performance analysis of incremental hop selection scheme with adaptive modulation for cooperative multi-hop networks

We analyze the performance of a cooperative multi-hop network with an incremental hop selection (IHS) scheme. Generally, multiple-relay networks based on half-duplex-mode relays undergo spectral efficiency loss due to the use of multiple time phases. The IHS scheme can prevent this problem because it increases the number of hops only when the currently selected path cannot support the target performance. Moreover, we apply an adaptive modulation technique to the IHS scheme to determine the additional spectral efficiency gain while maintaining the target performance. We evaluate the average spectral efficiency and the outage probability performances over the Nakagami- m fading channel. Also, the diversity and coding gains are derived through the asymptotic outage probability in the high transmit SNR region.