Location-based relay selection and power adaptation enabling simultaneous transmissions

Relaying is a well known technique to extend coverage and improve conditions for nodes in the outer coverage region. In this paper we propose a relaying scheme that exploits the spatial separation of relay and destination pairs to improve throughput by allowing simultaneous transmissions. The proposed scheme is a cross-layer optimization for two-hop relaying that uses position information to jointly optimize relay selection and relay transmit power, maximizing Medium Access Control layer throughput. Further, in order to calculate the expected throughput, we apply a probabilistic model that takes into account MAC retransmissions and timing behavior of the IEEE 802.11 Distributed Coordination Function mode. Our results show an increase in throughput of approximately 20% is achievable for the proposed scheme when compared to two-hop relaying in the analyzed scenario.