Sesay, Abu-BakerMAHASNEH, HASSAN ALI SHAKER2012-12-202013-06-152012-12-202012http://hdl.handle.net/11023/373The Third Generation Partnership Project's Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A) is considering an option for relay networks to provide cost-effective throughput enhancement and coverage extension. While analog repeaters have been used to enhance coverage in commercial cellular networks, the use of more sophisticated fixed relays is relatively new. The main challenges faced by relay deployments in cellular systems are designing an improved and efficient relaying protocol, improving the desired signal and overcoming the extra interference added by the presence of relays specifically at cell-edge regions. Most prior works on relaying do not consider relay integration in cellular LTE-A systems. In this dissertation, we propose and investigate the performance of a modified relaying protocol, the Enhanced-Decode-and-Forward (E-DF), which improves diversity and data rate and reduces the symbol error rate. The dissertation also proposes and analyzes the performance of several half-duplex downlink relay schemes in interference-limited cellular systems. These schemes are – The Omni-Relay (OR) scheme, The Directional-Relay (DR) scheme and The In-band Relay (IR) scheme. The average signal-to-interference plus noise ratio and average capacity performances of each scheme are analyzed for each relay type, antenna pattern as well as power and frequency resources allocation.engUniversity of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.Engineering--Electronics and ElectricalCOOPERATIVE COMMUNICATIONSLONG TERM EVOLUTION-ADVANCEDRELAY PROTOCOLdoctoral thesis10.11575/PRISM/25462