The surge in traffic has amplified the need for greater reliability and higher throughput in vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications. While network-coded cooperation (NCC) offers a promising solution, its reliance on overheard signals and susceptibility to network coding noise raise concerns about the quality-of-service (QoS) being provided. To address this, we propose a rate-splitting aided multi-user cooperation (RSMUC) framework, which employs rate-splitting multiple access (RSMA) as a relaying scheme and enhances the QoS by removing the dependency on overheard signals while leveraging the inherent benefits of RSMA. The outage probability analysis of the system is performed, where joint cumulative distribution functions (CDFs) are essential for accurately characterizing the outage performance of both common and private streams. To model the interdependence between these streams, we develop a copula-based framework. The results show close alignment between the simulated results and the derived analytical equations. Comparative evaluations against benchmark schemes, like NCC variants and non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) based cooperative systems (NCS), show that RSMUC significantly outperforms existing approaches across various performance metrics like outage probability and throughput. The contribution of RSMA was further verified through comparisons of throughput and packet delivery/drop (%) rates, providing key insights that are crucial in setting vehicular cluster sizes. These findings underscore the potential of RSMUC to enhance reliability and deliver improved QoS in next-generation V2V networks.

Driven by the growing demands for reliability and high data rates, uplink rate-splitting multiple access (RSMA) has emerged as a promising technique for next-generation wireless networks. However, in practical scenarios, particularly under imperfect SIC (ipSIC), the presence of residual interference (RI) significantly degrades performance, especially at high transmit power levels. This RI stems from two key sources: intra-user split packet interference (SPI) due to imperfect cancellation of a user’s own split streams, and inter-user residual packet interference (IPI) from imperfect cancellation of other users’ signals. As these impairments accumulate across multiple SIC stages, the inherent benefits of rate splitting may progressively diminish, potentially resulting in performance degradation compared to conventional schemes such as non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA). To address this challenge, we propose a split-packet interference management (SPIM) framework that enhances uplink RSMA performance under ipSIC by structurally enforcing orthogonality between a user’s own split streams. This design reduces the reliance on successive decoding and effectively limits the propagation of RI, especially from SPI, while preserving the benefits of rate-splitting. We consider a two-user system and perform a comprehensive outage probability analysis under both perfect SIC (pSIC) and ipSIC conditions, leveraging a copula-based statistical modelling framework to accurately model the dependency between streams. Additionally, we derive analytical expressions for the ergodic sum rate thus, providing insights into the long-term performance. While the core analysis focuses on a two-user setup, the SPIM RSMA architecture is extended to larger user groups with a scalable receiver design. Simulation results closely match analytical findings and demonstrate that while SPIM RSMA performs comparably to conventional RSMA under pSIC, it significantly outperforms both conventional RSMA and NOMA under ipSIC conditions in terms of outage probability, sum-rate, and sum-throughput. These results underscore the structural versatility of SPIM RSMA, which proactively mitigates SPI, thereby preserving the advantages of rate splitting in SIC-constrained environments.

This paper presents a peer conscious opportunistic network coded cooperation (PC-O-NCC) system that exploits multi-user diversity (MUD) gain in a simple network coded cooperation (NCC) based network. It prioritizes sources with better channel conditions by granting them earlier access than the other competing nodes unlike the prevalent time division multiple access (TDMA) technique used widely in any NCC network. This improves the outage performance of the overall system. To prioritise sources with better channel conditions, a novel timer-based MAC protocol is proposed. The proposed protocol is designed such that it aims to reduce collisions by taking the network load into account along with channel conditions while generating the timer values. It also minimizes the power consumption in performing clear channel assessment (CCA) by sources which is a costly affair for battery-operated devices. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm improves the outage performance while keeping the latency to a minimum value. The improvement in the outage performance can prove to be important in taking key decisions which becomes crucial in disaster management, drone assisted scenarios or intelligent transportation systems.

Abstract This paper proposes drone assisted device‐to‐device cooperative communication (DA‐DDCC) for critical situations during post‐disaster management. The proposed network utilizes the autonomous mode of D2D communication for setting up the link in the absence of a central node. This network incorporates cooperative communication using drone in D2D session for improving reliability of the overall system. A probability‐based statistical channel model for such networks is proposed by taking the statistical independence of links into consideration. Unlike the existing air‐to‐ground (A2G) channel models that use either Rayleigh or Rician distribution for uplink (UL) and downlink (DL) channel modelling, our approach takes the probability of occurrence of line of sight (LoS) into account while predicting the appropriate channel distribution for UL and DL separately. For performance evaluation of the proposed network, average outage probability and average capacity are derived using the proposed channel model. Monte Carlo simulations are conducted to verify our analysis. Moreover, a multi‐cluster DA‐DDCC scenario is also being analyzed through simulations from an interference perspective to justify the usefulness of the proposed channel model. Results obtained through this investigation can be utilized in selecting various crucial system parameters judiciously for enhanced performance during post‐disaster scenario.

In this paper, use of drone as a relay node in Network Coded Cooperation (NCC) for upcoming wireless networks is proposed to achieve additional diversity as well as improve throughput. Unlike static relay cases, in drone assisted scenarios, better performance can be achieved simply by changing the position of relay. In order to quantify the network performance in drone assisted NCC, analytical closed form expression of outage probability has been calculated using two approaches namely, Analytical and Semi-analytical. Using a generalized system model, Probability Density Function (PDF) of Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) of the path from source to destination via drone (relay) is derived. Closed form expression for outage probability in absence of direct link is also investigated. By analyzing Analog Network Coding (ANC) noise, statistical parameters of variance of ANC-noise have been obtained. Analytical findings have been verified through extensive simulations using MATLAB. Effects of drone height on system performance is also investigated through simulations. Framework presented here can be useful while analysing networks having resource constraint devices. PDF of SNR of relay path can be utilized for performing diversity calculations. Two outage expressions derived may be useful in determining system parameters for achieving any particular Quality of Service (QoS) in next generation wireless networks. Valuable insights obtained through the analysis of optimum height of drone are conducive while deploying the nodes in deterministic fashion for NCC.

In this paper, we propose Drone Assisted Network Coded Co-operation (DA-NCC) for next generation wireless networks to achieve good quality of service, better spectral efficiency and improved diversity. Unlike typical cooperative networks, DA-NCC makes use of drone as a relay node which provides additional degree of freedom in terms of movement. By adjusting the vertical position of drone, probability of getting Line of Sight component for Source (S)-Relay (R) and Relay (R)-Destination (D) links may be improved. For accurate characterization of such networks, Rayleigh faded channel for Source (S)-Destination (D) pair and probability based mixture model of Rayleigh and Rician faded channels for S-R and R-D pair are considered. Analytical expressions for network coded noise, variance of network coded noise, signal to overall noise ratio at destination node and rate are derived and verified through monte carlo simulation. Our investigation reveals that use of drone improves the network performance. However, drone height needs to be determined scrupulously. Such drone assisted communication set-up may play an important role in disaster management scenarios where communication through infrastructured base station is disrupted due to natural calamities.