Performance analysis of DF relaying multi-hop systems over log-normal fading channels

In this paper, we studied the end-to-end average bit error rate (BER) performance of decode-and-forward (DF) relaying multi-hop chain systems (MCSs) over log-normal fading channels. After specifying the distribution of the signal-to-noise rate for each hop, the analytical expression of the end-to-end average BER has been derived. The derived end-to-end average BER model can be used in the case that all the single-hops in the chain have different statistical behaviors, i.e., all links suffer various types of fadings, not limited to one type of fading. The comparisons between Monte Carlo simulation results and analytical results under various conditions verify the accuracy of the proposed model.