Energy-Efficient Decentralized Routing With Localized Cooperation Suitable for Fast Fading

The authors consider the joint optimization of the route and the physical layer in cooperative wireless networks with fast fading. In fast fading channels where the channel states change from one transmission to another, the instantaneous Channel State Information (CSI) on a link cannot be propagated to nodes far away. Hence, the cooperation between nodes on the basis of instantaneous channel states has to be local. Moreover, the optimal cooperative route cannot be re-computed every time the channels change. Also, since even the locally available CSI has to be refreshed often, the energy consumption for acquiring the necessary Channel State Information (CSI) can be significant - they design schemes to acquire the CSI and model the energy cost.