Assisting communications of small data payloads with relay nodes

An apparatus for wireless communication, comprising:

• a processing system configured to:
• form a cluster with one or more wireless nodes and the apparatus, wherein the apparatus has a low data rate demand relative to a system bandwidth,
• generate packets for uplink transmission to a base station, and
• determine that a wireless node within the one or more wireless nodes is serving as a relay node for the cluster;
• and
• a transceiver configured to:
• receive, from the wireless node, an uplink transmission payload size that is associated with the wireless node and greater than a size of all the generated packets;
• transmit the generated packets to the base station through a relay link in the cluster via the wireless node based on the determination and the uplink transmission payload size.

An apparatus for wireless communication, comprising:

• a processing system configured to determine that:
• a first wireless node is serving as a relay node in a cluster including the first wireless node and one or more second wireless nodes, wherein each of the one or more second wireless nodes has a low data rate demand relative to a system bandwidth;
• and
• the first wireless node serves as the relay node in the cluster for a first time period and a third wireless node from the one or more second wireless nodes serves as the relay node for a second time period;
• and
• a transceiver configured to communicate with the cluster:
• via the first wireless node during the first time period based on the determination;
• and
• via the third wireless node after the first time period and during the second time period.