On the Performance of NOMA-Based Cooperative Communication Systems with Best Relay Selection over Nakagami-m fading Channels

Cooperative communications systems with best relay selection provide antenna diversity gain by constituting virtual antenna arrays in the wireless network. On the other hand, non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) technique has been proposed to achieve improved user access in the fifth generation (5G) wireless communications. The combination of the NOMA approach and the cooperative communications with best relay selection technique will play an important role in providing the service quality required by the new generation radio communication technologies. In this study, the performance of NOMA based cooperative communications with best relay seleciton is investigated over the Nakagami-m fading channels by providing computer simulation results for the achievable average rate. The obtained results have shown that the capacity is increased as the fading parameter m or the number of total relays increase.