fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/LCOMM.2017.2681661, IEEE
Communications Letters
IEEE COMMUNICATIONS LETTERS, VOL. ?, NO. ?, ? 2017 1
Abstract—This letter studies the outage performance of coop- was analyzed. The aforementioned works on cooperative
erative non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) network with the NOMA schemes with dedicated relays usually assume that
help of an amplify-and-forward relay. An accurate closed-form there are no direct links between the base station (BS) and
approximation for the exact outage probability is derived. Based
on this, the asymptotic outage probability is investigated, which the users, and all the users must exchange information with
shows that cooperative NOMA achieves the same diversity order the BS through the relays. However, for typical scenarios
and the superior coding gain compared to cooperative orthogonal of small cells in 5G networks [7], some users can directly
multiple access. It is also revealed that when the transmit power communicate with the BS while some cannot. In fact the
of relay is smaller than that of the base station, the outage research on cooperative NOMA schemes taking into both
performance improves as the distance between the relay and
indirect link user decreases. direct and indirect links users is also addressed. In particular, a
recent work addressed in [8] shows that the spectral efficiency
Index Terms—Outage probability, non-orthogonal multiple is remarkably improved when coordinated direct and decode-
access, amplify-and-forward, relaying networks.
and-forward relaying was employed in NOMA scheme, and
a cooperative NOMA system with a dedicated full-duplex
I. I NTRODUCTION relay was proposed in [9], which provided the exact analytical
N recent years, non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), expressions for achievable outage probability and ergodic sum
I which is a potential candidate for the multiple access
schemes in the fifth-generation (5G), has received significant
capacity of the system. However, to the best of the authors’
knowledge, the results for amplify-and-forward (AF) relaying
attention [1, 2]. Different from the conventional orthogonal NOMA systems has not yet been reported, which motivates
multiple access (OMA) schemes, NOMA can serve multiple the study of this letter.
users with utilizing the same time and frequency resource to In this letter, we investigate a downlink cooperative NO-
obtain a significant spectral efficiency gain [3]. As one of MA scheme including direct and indirect link users, where
the key radio access technologies to achieve higher spectral a dedicated relay node with AF protocol is adopted. Our
efficiency with low cost in 5G, NOMA is extended to cooper- contributions include two parts: 1) We compare the overall
ative transmission to enhance the transmission reliability for outage probability of the cooperative NOMA with the conven-
the users with poor channel conditions [4]. In particular, a co- tional cooperative OMA, which indicates that the cooperative
operative NOMA scheme was proposed in [4] by selecting the NOMA outperforms cooperative OMA significantly. More-
users with better channel conditions as relays for assisting the over, we derive a closed-form approximation of the outage
transmission of other users. In addition, a cooperative NOMA probability, which is shown to closely match with the exact
scheme with dedicated relays was investigated in [5] where a results; 2) We analyze the outage performance in the high
two-stage relay selection strategy for NOMA was proposed. SNR regime, where both the diversity order and coding gain
The concept of cooperative NOMA with dedicated relays was of the system are derived. We show that the diversity order
also extended to systems with multiple users equipped with of the system is one and the coding gain is affected by the
multiple antennas [6]. Specifically, relay selection based on location of the relay. Besides, if the transmit power of the
the maximal instantaneous signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) was relay is much smaller than the transmit power of the BS,
proposed and the corresponding system outage performance the outage performance is improved when the relay is nearer
to indirect link user. Monte Carlo simulations validate our
Manuscript received December 28, 2016; revised February 19, 2017; analytical results.
accepted March 5, 2017. The work of X. Liang was supported by the Jiangsu Notations— In this letter, we denote the probability and the
Provincial Colleges and Universities Project (Grant No. 16KJB510026) and
was sponsored by NUPTSF (Grant No. NY213062, NY214035). The work expectation value of a random event A by P{A} and E{A},
of Y. Wu was supported by the TUM University Foundation Fellowship. The respectively. | · | denotes the Euclidean norm of a scalar.
work of D. W. K. Ng was supported under Australian Research Councils
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award funding scheme (Project NO. II. S YSTEM M ODEL
DE170100137). The work of S. Jin was supported in part by the National
Science Foundation (NSFC) for Distinguished Young Scholars of China with Consider a fundamental model of a downlink cooperative
Grant 61625106. NOMA system including one BS, two users (UE1 and UE2),
Xuesong Liang, Yiping Zuo and Hongbo Zhu are with the School of
Telecommunication and Information Engineering, Nanjing University of Post- and one relay node (R), in which UE1 directly communicates
s and Telecommunications, Nanjing, China (e-mail: liangxs@njupt.edu.cn, with the BS. Besides, UE2 needs the help from R because
zuoyiping93@gmail.com and zhuhb@njupt.edu.cn). there is no direct path between the BS and UE2 due to the long
Yongpeng Wu is with Institute for Communications Engineering, Technical
University of Munich, , Germany (email: yongpeng.wu2016@gmail.com). distance or significant blockage between them. Each node is
Derrick Wing Kwan Ng is with the School of Electrical Engineering and equipped with a single-antenna and the relay operates in half-
Telecommunications, the University of New South Wales, Australia (email: duplex mode using an AF protocol. The scheme of cooperative
w.k.ng@unsw.edu.au).
Shi Jin is with the National Mobile Communications Research Laboratory, NOMA consists of two consecutive equal length time slots, as
Southeast University, Nanjing, China (e-mail: jinshi@seu.edu.cn). described in the follows.
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Communications Letters
IEEE COMMUNICATIONS LETTERS, VOL. ?, NO. ?, ? 2017 2
During the first time slot, the BS broadcasts the superim- Alternatively, an approximation with a closed-form expression
posed signal, x1 + x2 , to R and UE1, where x1 and x2 are for the outage probability is derived, and based on which the
the corresponding signals for UE1 and UE2, respectively, with asymptotic characteristics of outage performance in the high
2 2
E{|x1 | } = P1 and E{|x2 | } = P2 . According to the NOMA SNR regime are also discussed.
protocol described in [3], we set P1 < P2 and denote the total
transmit power for the BS as PT = P1 + P2 .
Therefore the received signals y1′ at UE1, and yr at R are A. Outage Probability
given by
To begin with, we characterize the outage probability
y1′ = h1 x + n1 , (1) achieved by this two-phase cooperative NOMA system. De-
yr = hr x + nr , (2) noting the data rate requirements for UE1 and UE2 as R1 and
R2 , respectively, we note that the overall outage probability
respectively, where n1 and nr denote the complex additive of system is defined as
white Gaussian noises (AWGN), both with zero mean and ∆
variance N0 at UE1 and R, respectively. Meanwhile, we Pout = P {γ12 < f (R2 ) or γ1 < f (R1 ) or γ2 < f (R2 )} (9)
assume that the channels between the BS and UE1, h1 , and
where f (R) denotes the SINR threshold relative to the prac-
that between the BS and R, hr , are independent Rayleigh
2 2 tical data rate requirement with f (R) = 22R − 1. In the
fading with E{|h1 | } = σ12 and E{|hr | } = σr2 . definition of (9), we note that γ1 , γ12 and γ2 denote the SINRs
During the second time slot, the BS remains silent and R
broadcasts the signal xr to UE1 and UE2 after multiplying of x1 and x2 at UE1, and SINR of x2 at UE2, respectively,
the previous
√ received signal, yr with {an amplifying
} gain while f (R1 ) and f (R2 ) represent the SINR thresholds for
ρ = P |hP|R2 +N [10], where PR = E |xr |
2
denotes the successfully decoding x1 and x2 , respectively. Unfortunately,
T r 0 mathematical analysis of the outage probability in (9) becomes
transmit power of the relay. Therefore, the received signals y1′′ intractable since the considered random events are correlated.
at UE1, and y2 at UE2 are given by
Hence, an alternative with a closed-form approximation to (9)
y1′′ = h̃1 xr + ñ1 , (3) is needed.
y2 = hr,2 xr + n2 , (4) Proposition 1. An approximation for the outage probability
with xr = ρyr , h̃1 = ρhr,1 hr and ñ1 = ρhr,1 nr + n′1 . We of the system is given by (10) (on top of next page) with η =
σ12
denote the AWGNs both with zero mean and variance N0 at σ 2 −λσ 2
, µ = √ 2θ2r 2 , δ = σθr2 + λσθr2 , and λ = P
PT .
R
UE1 (in relaying phase) and UE2 by n′1 and n2 , respectively. 1 r,1 λσr σr,2 r r,2
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Communications Letters
IEEE COMMUNICATIONS LETTERS, VOL. ?, NO. ?, ? 2017 3
( ) ( )
γ̄1 γ̄1
1 − µ exp (−δ) K 1 (µ) 1 + exp − , when σ12 = λσr,12
and P2 /P1 > f (R2 )
σ 2
σ 2
[ (1
) 1
( )]
PA = γ̄1 γ̄1 (10)
out
1 − µ exp (−δ) K1 (µ) η exp − 2 + (1 − η) exp − 2
, when σ12 ̸= λσr,1
2
and P2 /P1 > f (R2 )
σ λσ
1 r,1
1, else.
in which K1 (µ) denotes the first order modified Bessel func- Fig. 1−a: Case B versus Case B−II Fig. 1−b: Cases A−Case C
tion of the second kind. In physics, PA and PB represent
the probabilities of x1 being decoded by UE1, and x2 being
decoded by UE2, respectively. Therefore, we may use 1 − PA
0 0
10 10
Outage Probability
Outage Probability
Case B−II
B. Asymptotic Analysis
In this subsection, we focus on the high SNR regime and −1
10
−1
10
discuss the asymptotic characteristics of the outage probability
based on (10). To analyze PA out in the high SNR regime, we Monte−Carlo (Case A)
fix PR /PT and P1 /PT when PT /N0 → ∞ (with denoting Analytical (Case A)
γ̄0 = PT /N0 ). Then, we obtain the following proposition. Monte−Carlo (NOMA) Monte−Carlo (Case B)
Monte−Carlo (OMA) Analytical (Case B)
Proposition 2. When γ̄0 → ∞ and P2 /P1 > f (R2 ), the Analytical (NOMA) Monte−Carlo (Case C)
asymptotic expression of the outage probability is given by −2 Asymptotic (NOMA) −2 Analytical (Case C)
10 10
10 15 20 25 30 35 10 15 20 25 30 35
δr
lim PA
out ≈ , (14) PT/N0 (dB) PT/N0 (dB)
γ̄0 →∞ γ̄0
( )
where δr = f (R2 ) 1
+ 1
and λ1 = P1 /PT . Fig. 1: The outage probability versus SNR.
1−λ1 [1+f (R2 )] σr2 2
λσr,2
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Communications Letters
IEEE COMMUNICATIONS LETTERS, VOL. ?, NO. ?, ? 2017 4
( ) ( )
γ̄1 γ̄1
1 − 1 + exp − , σ12 = λσr,1
2
{ } σ 2
σ 2
P |h1 |2 + λ |hr,1 |2 < γ̄1 = (1 ) 1
( ) (15)
γ̄ γ̄
1 − η exp − 12 − (1 − η) exp − 12 ̸ λσr,1
, σ12 = 2
σ1 λσr,1
{ ( ) } ( )
θr θr θr
P λ |hr,2 |2 1 − ≤ θr = 1 − exp − − µK1 (µ) (16)
|hr |2 σr2 2
λσr,2
( ) ( )
γ̄1 γ̄1
{ ( ) }
1 − µ exp (−δ) K 1 (µ) 1 + exp − , σ12 = λσr,1
2
θr σ12 σ12
P |h1 |2 + λ |hr,1 |2 < γ̄1 or λ |hr,2 |2 1 − ≤ θr = [ ( ) ( )]
|hr |2
γ̄ γ̄
1 − µ exp (−δ) K1 (µ) η exp − 12 + (1 − η) exp − 12 , else
σ1 λσr,1
(17)
high SNR regime, which is predicted to be 1 in Proposition 2. (3.324-1)], the second term in (18) is given by (16) (on the
Meanwhile, the coding gain for cooperative NOMA is superior top of the page) with λ = PR /PT and µ = √ 2θ2r 2 . Finally,
λσr σr,2
to that for cooperative OMA, which shows the advantage by substituting (15) and (16) into (18), we obtain (17) (on the
of outage performance for cooperative NOMA. Besides, the top of the page) with δ = σθr2 + λσθr2 , which completes the
impact of relay location on coding gain is also examined by r r,2
comparing the simulation results of Cases B-I and B-II. Fig. 1- proof.
a shows that the coding gain is improved when R is closer to
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θr
PL
out ≈ P |h 1 | 2
+ λ |h r,1 | 2
< γ̄ 1 or λ |h r,2 | 2
1 − ≤ θr
[11] I. S. Gradshteyn and I. M. Ryzhik, Table of Integrals, Series, and
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{ } θr with formulas, graphs, and mathematical tables, 1st ed. Courier
= P |h1 |2 + λ |hr,1 |2 < γ̄1 + P λ |hr,2 |2 1 − ≤ θ r
|hr |2 Corporation, 1964.
{ ( ) }
{ } θr
− P |h1 |2 + λ |hr,1 |2 < γ̄1 P λ |hr,2 |2 1 − ≤ θr
|hr |2
(18)
and the main terms in (18) are calculated as follows.
The first term in (18) is given by (15) (on the top of the
σ12
page) with η = σ2 −λσ 2 . In the sequel, by utilizing [11,
1 r,1
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