Outage performance analysis of relay‐aided non‐orthogonal multiple access networks with energy harvesting schemes

Abstract

In this study, the performance of wirelessly powered relay-aided non-orthogonal multiple access networks is investigated in terms of outage probability. Specifically, two relay selection strategies, i.e. two-stage relay selection (TRS) and maximum energy harvesting relay selection (MEHS), and two energy harvesting scenarios, i.e. time switching (TS) and power splitting (PS) are considered. In each setup, outage probabilities' analytical expressions and their asymptotics are derived. Monte-Carlo simulations are also carried out to verify the correctness of the analysis. The results show that regardless of relay selection and energy harvesting strategies, increasing transmit power can improve the proposed system performance. However, TRS can achieve a full diversity order, while MEHS has a unit diversity order. Besides, the results recommend parameter selections of PS and TS coefficients for optimal performance in term of outage probability.