MULTI-USER DIVERSITY FORWARDING

A higher degree of freedom in the forwarding process can be obtained by investigating which destinations and/or flows that are represented in a transmitting node and selecting relay direction through a wise choice of destination and/or flow. In effect, the forwarding algorithm jointly selects i) a relay node among multiple relay candidate nodes and ii) at least one of a) flow among multiple flows and b) destination among multiple destinations. The transmitting node then selects a set of information heading for a selected destination and/or belonging to a selected flow from the transmit queue, and finally transmits the selected information to the selected relay node. The joint selection process is often based on cost progress, and may be even forward progress in geographic distance. It is however also possible to consider e.g. QoS (Quality of Service) aspects and fairness criteria in the selection process.