Rate-Per-Link Adaptation in Cooperative Wireless Networks With Multi-Rate Combining

Rate adaptation based on Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) measurements is a common channel adaptation scheme to increase throughput in wireless communication systems. In this paper, the authors analyze the potential gains that combining cooperation with rate adaptation brings in three steps: they derive the theoretical capacity bounds for ideal rate adaptation schemes for typical topologies. They propose an offline heuristic for computing SNR thresholds aimed at reaching the derived bounds. Using this heuristic, they compare rate adaptation for Maximal Ratio Combining (MRC), where links are equally adapted, with Soft-Bit MRC (SBMRC), where links are individually adapted.