  Utilizing relaying techniques to improve performance of wireless systems is a
promising avenue. However, it is crucial to understand what type of relaying
schemes should be used for achieving different performance objectives under
realistic fading conditions. In this paper, we present a general framework for
modelling and evaluating the performance of relaying schemes based on the
decode-and-forward (DF) protocol over independent and not necessarily
identically distributed (INID) Nakagami-m fading channels. In particular, we
present closed-form expressions for the statistics of the instantaneous output
signal-to-noise ratio of four significant relaying schemes with DF; two based
on repetitive transmission and the other two based on relay selection (RS).
These expressions are then used to obtain closed-form expressions for the
outage probability and the average symbol error probability for several
modulations of all considered relaying schemes over INID Nakagami-m fading.
Importantly, it is shown that when the channel state information for RS is
perfect, RS-based transmission schemes always outperform repetitive ones.
Furthermore, when the direct link between the source and the destination nodes
is sufficiently strong, relaying may not result in any gains and in this case
it should be switched-off.
