Earticle

Transmit diversity generally requires more than one antenna at the transmitter. However, many wireless devices are limited by size or hardware complexity to one antenna. Recently, a new class of methods called cooperative communication has been proposed that enables singleantennamobiles in a multi-user environment to share their antennas and generate a virtual multiple-antenna transmitter that allows them to achieve transmit diversity. This paper gives an overview of cooperative communication which is a technique that acts as virtual MIMO. Inthis paper we analyze cooperative communication in detail. We study the steps to cooperation and differentcombining strategies at the destination.