  It has been shown that a decentralized relay selection protocol based on
opportunistic feedback from the relays yields good throughput performance in
dense wireless networks. This selection strategy supports a hybrid-ARQ
transmission approach where relays forward parity information to the
destination in the event of a decoding error. Such an approach, however,
suffers a loss compared to centralized strategies that select relays with the
best channel gain to the destination. This paper closes the performance gap by
adding another level of channel feedback to the decentralized relay selection
problem. It is demonstrated that only one additional bit of feedback is
necessary for good throughput performance. The performance impact of varying
key parameters such as the number of relays and the channel feedback threshold
is discussed. An accompanying bit error rate analysis demonstrates the
importance of relay selection.
