Joint Optimal Design for Outage Minimization in DF Relay-assisted Underwater Acoustic Networks

This letter minimizes outage probability in a single decode-and-forward (DF) relay-assisted underwater acoustic network (UAN) without direct source-to-destination link availability. Specifically, a joint global-optimal design for relay positioning and allocating power to source and relay is proposed. For analytical insights, a novel low-complexity tight approximation method is also presented. Selected numerical results validate the analysis and quantify the comparative gains achieved using optimal power allocation (PA) and relay placement (RP) strategies.