Abstract
In this paper, we propose a decode-and-forward incremental relaying scheme to improve the performance of wireless communication systems. In specific, the scheme aims to enhance the spectral efficiency by introducing a policy that avoids cooperative transmission whenever it is not beneficial. We provide performance analysis in terms of average spectral efficiency and average bit error rate under Rayleigh fading channels. Numerical results show that with the scheme, the average spectral efficiency and average bit error rate of wireless communication systems can be improved significantly.