Flexible Distributed Buffer-Aided Link Selection for Multi-Hop Relay Networks

This paper investigates distributed link selection (LS) for a multi-hop buffer-aided relay network consisting of one source, one destination, and multiple relays, where each node has access only to local instantaneous channel state information (CSI) and the buffer status of its adjacent nodes. In particular, by improving the alternate-transmission strategy, we propose a novel flexible distributed LS scheme that flexibly selects odd- and even-numbered links in each time slot. Notably, acquisition