Spatially random relay selection for full/half-duplex cooperative NOMA networks

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of relay selection (RS) on the performance of cooperative non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), where relays are capable of working in either full-duplex (FD) or half-duplex (HD) mode. A number of relays (i.e., K relays) are uniformly distributed within the disc. A pair of RS schemes are considered insightfully: 1) single-stage RS (SRS) scheme; and 2) two-stage RS (TRS) scheme. In order to characterize the performance of these two RS schemes, new closed-form expressions for both exact and asymptotic outage probabilities are derived. Based on analytical results, the diversity orders achieved by the pair of RS schemes for FD/HD cooperative NOMA are obtained. Our analytical results reveal that: 1) the FD-based RS schemes obtain a zero diversity order, which is due to the influence of loop interference at the relay; and 2) the HD-based RS schemes are capable of achieving a diversity order of K , which is equal to the number of relays. Finally, simulation results demonstrate that: 1) the FD-based RS schemes have better outage performance than HD-based RS schemes in the low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) region; 2) as the number of relays increases, the pair of RS schemes considered are capable of achieving the lower outage probability; and 3) the outage behaviors of FD/HD-based NOMA SRS/TRS schemes are superior to that of random RS and orthogonal multiple access based RS schemes.