Performance Analysis for DF Relay-Aided Visible Light Communication System With NOMA

Abstract

Visible light communication (VLC) has been deemed to be one promising technique for the sixth-generation wireless communication network. However, due to the attenuation properties, the VLC ranges are usually limited. To unlock the advantage of multiple light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and extend the coverage of VLC systems, a relay-aided VLC system with non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is proposed in this paper. Specifically, a decode-and-forward (DF) relay protocol is introduced to construct the relay-aided VLC system with NOMA. Moreover, the closed-form expression of the outage probability (OP) in the DF relay-aided VLC system with NOMA is derived to accurately characterize the theoretical performance of the system. Thereafter, the effects of the corresponding parameters on the OP are investigated. Simulation results verify the accuracy of the derived theoretical expression and illustrate that the DF relay-aided VLC system with NOMA can effectively improve system outage performance. Compared to the direct transmission NOMA VLC system without relay link, our scheme can obtain $\text{15}\,\text{dB}$ transmit signal-to-noise ratio gains in $10^{-3}$ OP level. Last but not least, the optimal transmit semi-angle and deployment height of the relay can be determined for achieving the optimal system outage performance.

Keywords

• Visible light communication
• non-orthogonal multiple access
• outage probability
• relay
• decode-and-forward