Threshold-Based Selective Cooperative-NOMA

In this letter, we propose threshold-based selective cooperative-NOMA (TBS-C-NOMA) to increase the data reliability of conventional cooperative-NOMA (C-NOMA) networks. In TBS-C-NOMA, the intra-cell user forwards the symbols of cell-edge user after successive interference canceler (SIC) only if the signal-to-interference plus noise ratio (SINR) is greater than the pre-determined threshold value. Hence, the data reliability of the cell-edge user is increased by eliminating the effect of the error propagation. We derive closed-form end-to-end exact bit error probability (BEP) of the proposed system for various modulation constellations. Then, the optimum threshold value is analyzed in order to minimize the BEP. The obtained expressions are validated via simulations and it is revealed that the TBS-C-NOMA outperforms C-NOMA and full diversity order is achieved.