Performance of Dual-Hop Relaying for THz-RF Wireless Link

The use of Terahertz (THz) frequency bands for data transmissions between the core network and an access point can be promising for next generation wireless systems. In this paper, we analyze the performance of a dual-hop relaying for THz-RF wireless link for backhaul applications. Considering the $α-μ$ fading channel and a statistical model of pointing errors, we derive a novel closed-form expression of the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for the THz link, which is also valid for non-integer values of $μ$. Using the CDF, we derive analytical expressions of the end-to-end SNR and lower bound on ergodic capacity of a decode-and-forward (DF) assisted THz-RF relaying in terms of system parameters. Using analytical results of the direct link and computer simulations, we demonstrate that the THz-RF relaying is a viable technology for wireless backhaul, providing a significant increase of almost $25 \%$ in the spectral efficiency, compared to the direct transmissions.