Abstract
A multi-relay cooperative diversity protocol based on the concept of Generalized Spatial Modulation (GSM) scheme is proposed in this paper, assuming that decode-and-forward relaying protocol is adopted at relays. This scheme is referred to as Distributed Generalized Spatial Modulation (DGSM) with activating more than one relay. The system performance of the proposed diversity protocol in terms of the Symbol Error Rate (SER) is evaluated and compared to the performance of GSM and Distributed Spatial Modulation (DSM) schemes. Simulation results show that DGSM systems with activating more than one relay perform almost the same as DSM systems for the same spectral efficiency. It is also demonstrated that a performance enhancement of about 3 dB is achieved over GSM schemes for the same modulation order, which increases the energy efficiency and the reachability using the proposed model. Therefore, the proposed scheme can be effectively used in various 5G wireless networks.