Scaled Selection Combining Receiver for Cooperative NOMA-based 5G Cellular Systems

Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA) technology can accommodate more subscribers concurrently and achieve higher spectrum efficiency than Orthogonal Multiple Access (OMA) technologies. This work investigates the performance of the two subscriber downlink cooperative NOMA system with Scaled Selection Combining (SSC) comprising a Base Station (BS), a cell edge subscriber and a near subscriber. Due to the channel conditions, the error performance of the cell edge subscriber is poorer compared to the near subscriber. To mitigate this and enhance the performance, the proposed SSC combines signals from BS and near subscriber and chooses the best signal between them. The Symbol Error Probability (SEP) of this cellular system with M−ary Phase Shift Keying (MPSK) modulation is derived under the Rayleigh fading environment. The optimum scaling factor to reduce the SEP is also obtained. The theoretical SEP expressions of SSC are validated with the Monte-Carlo simulations. The proposed system provides better SEP and outperforms the non-cooperation and traditional Selection Combining (SC) schemes. Additionally, the efficacy of the proposed system under various modulation schemes is studied.