The low-bit-rate hybrid power line/wireless single-relay channel

This paper focuses on the hybrid power line/wireless single-relay channel (HSRC) model, which is constituted by parallel power line and wireless single-relay channel (SRC) models, for data communication purposes. Closed-form expressions for ergodic achievable data rates and outage probabilities are presented. These expressions are based on the fact that both power line and wireless are frequency-selective block-fading channels corrupted by additive random noise with a definite power spectral density. Moreover, comparisons among HSRC, power line SRC, and wireless SRC under the sum power constraint with optimal and uniform power allocations, the use of amplify-and-forward and decode-and-forward cooperative protocols, and different relay positions are discussed. Based on asymptotic, analytical, and numerical results, we show that HSRC outperforms both power line and wireless SRCs in all considered scenarios. Furthermore, a performance comparison between HSRC and the so-called two wireless SRC shows that the former surpasses the latter when the sum power constraint with optimal power allocation is adopted.