Dual-hop Relaying Networks for Short-Packet URLLCs: Performance analysis and Optimization

This paper investigates short-packet communications for the dual-hop decode-and-forward relaying system to facilitate ultra-reliable and low-latency communications. In this system, a selected relay having the highest signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) serves as a forwarder to support the unavailable direct link between the source and destination, whereas a maximum ratio combining technique is leveraged at the destination to achieve the highest diversity gain. Approximated expressions of end-to-end (e2e) block error rates (BLERs) are derived over quasi-static Rayleigh fading channels and the finite-blocklength regime. To gain more insights about the performance behavior in the high-SNR regime, we provide the asymptotic analysis with two approaches, from which the qualitative conclusion based on the diversity order is made. Furthermore, the power allocation and relay location optimization problems are also considered to minimize the asymptotic e2e BLER under the configuration constraints. Our analysis is verified through Monte-Carlo simulations, which yield the system parameters' impact on the system performance.