Method and system for communicating in cooperative relay networks

A method for communicating information in a cooperative relay network of wireless nodes, the wireless nodes including a source, a set of relays, and a destination, comprising the steps of:

• broadcasting data packets, from a source to a set of relays of a cooperative relay network;
• decoding the data packets at particular relays of the set having a sufficiently high signal to noise ratio;
• transmitting training data from the particular nodes to a destination node of the cooperative relay network;
• estimating the channel state information for each channel between the destination and each particular relay based on the training data;
• selecting a subset of the relays, based on the channel state information;
• feeding back the channel state information to the subset of relays;
• and
• forwarding coherently the data packets to the destination using beamforming based on the channel state information to minimize a total energy consumption in the cooperative relay network.

A method for communicating information in a cooperative relay network of wireless nodes, the wireless nodes including a source, a set of relays, and a destination, comprising the steps of:

• decoding data broadcast by the source to the set of relays by particular relays having a sufficiently high signal to noise ratio;
• transmitting training data from the particular nodes to a destination;
• estimating channel state information for each channel between the destination and each particular relay based in the training data;
• and
• selecting a subset of the relays, based on the channel state information, for forwarding the data packets from the selected subset of relays to the destination while minimizing a total power consumption in the cooperative relay network.

A cooperative relay network of wireless nodes, comprising:

• a source node configured to broadcast data packets;
• a set of relays configured to decode the data packets having a sufficiently high signal to noise ratio, and to transmit training data;
• and
• a destination node configured to estimate channel state information for each channel between the destination and each relay based on the training data, and to select a subset of the relays, based on the channel state information, and to feed back the channel state information to the subset of relays so that the subset of nodes forward coherently the data packets to the destination using beamforming based on the channel state information to minimize a total energy consumption in the cooperative relay network.