Partial relay selection based on shadowing side information over generalized composite fading channels

In this paper, in contrast to the relay selection protocols available in the literature, we propose a partial relay selection protocol utilizing only the shadowing side information of the relays instead of their full channel side information in order to select a relay in a dual-hop relaying system through the available limited feedback channels and power budget. We then presented an exact unified performance expression combining the average bit error probability, ergodic capacity, and moments-generating function of the proposed partial relay selection over generalized fading channels. Referring to the unified performance expression introduced in [1], we explicitly offer a generic unified performance expression that can be easily calculated and that is applicable to a wide variety of fading scenarios. Finally, as an illustration of the mathematical formalism, some numerical and simulation results are generated for an extended generalized-K fading environment, and these numerical and simulation results are shown to be in perfect agreement. © 2011 IEEE.