On the Performance of Full-Duplex Multi-Relay Channels With DF Relays

In this paper, we consider a two-hop full-duplex multi-relay channel (FD-MRC) for exploiting the high spectral efficiency of FD systems and the diversity gains of multi-relay systems. Employing a decode-and-forward (DF) relaying protocol, the single best relay is selected from those relays that have successfully decoded the source message, which then helps forward the source message to the destination. Meanwhile, a new message is broadcast by the source, and all the N relays, including the selected best one, attempt to decode this new message. In view of the effect of both inter-relay interference and self-interference, a one-step correlation exists between the relay decoding results in successive time slots. Then, a Markov chain-based analytical model is utilized for analyzing the exact outage probability of FD-MRC. Furthermore, a close-to-full diversity order of (N - 1 + mu) is analytically proved to be attainable for FD-MRC, where mu is a factor characterizing the efficiency of SI mitigation.