The exact outage probability of multiuser linear network coded cooperation system

Outage probability is one of the most important performance measures for cooperative communication systems. And the closed-form solution on exact outage probability is essential for many further studies, such as optimal power allocation and rate control. However, as far as we know, the issue remains open for multiuser linear network coded cooperation (LNCC), which is a technology integrating linear network coding into cooperative communication. Consequently, in this paper, we investigate the multiuser LNCC system with multiple cooperation time slots and many-to-one communication pattern. All the possible outage scenarios are fully considered and the closed-form solution of the system's exact outage probability is theoretically derived. In order to obtain the diversity order of the LNCC system, the asymptotic outage probability is also analysed. The theoretical analyses are verified by plenty of Monte Carlo simulations. In order to demonstrate the benefits introduced by LNC to the cooperative system, the outage performance comparison between the LNCC and the traditional Decode-and-Forward (DF) cooperation system is carried out. The results show that given the same number of users and cooperation time slots, the LNCC system's outage probability is greatly lower than that of the traditional DF cooperation system.