Amplify-and-Forward Relaying With Maximal Ratio Combining Over Fluctuating Two-Ray Channel: Non-Asymptotic and Asymptotic Performance Analysis

Fluctuating two-ray (FTR) channel model was shown to effectively characterize millimeter wave (mmWave) communication channels. In this article, we adopt FTR to investigate amplify-and-Forward (AF) mmWave relaying system. Two communications scenarios are considered corresponding to the presence and absence of a direct link between the transmitter and receiver. Outage probability and symbol error rate (SER) are then analytically obtained as performance metrics. The results are further compared with the corresponding metrics obtained based on conventional channel models including Nakagami-m and two-wave with diffuse power (TWDP). Especially, for the high-SNR regime, our analyses indicate that performance evaluations based on the conventional models significantly deviate from that of based on the FTR model. Our results provide quantitative insights on the importance of model selection in design and performance evaluations of relay-based mmWave systems. Moreover, for the high-SNR regime, we carry out asymptotic analysis and obtain a low-complexity expression for the achieved AF relaying gain. Such an expression provides a quantitative measure on whether or not AF relaying outperforms no-relaying in a given setting. Extensive numerical and simulation results are provided to confirm the accuracy of the analysis and investigate system performance in different settings.