Performance analysis of amplify-and-forward network coding for multicast relay systems

In identical Nakagami-m fading channels, the outage probability performance of network coding for multicast relay system is analyzed. The amplify-and-forward network coding (AFNC) transmission strategy is applied in the system. By using the outage event definition in multiuser communication system and the mutual information expressions of multiple access channels, the approximate expression of outage probability is derived at high SNR and the conclusion that the system diversity gain of AFNC is 2m is also obtained, which is verified by numerical simulations. Simulation results also show that, AFNC can outperform direct transmission without relay in the performances of system outage probability and symbol error ratio.