Performance Analysis for Dual-Hop UWOC-RF Systems With NOMA

In this study, we investigate a non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA)-assisted dual-hop underwater wireless optical communication-radio frequency (UWOC-RF) network. Specifically, an optical source forwards a NOMA signal to a marine relay, which first deploys either the heterodyne detection or intensity modulation direct detection to process the received signal, and then encodes and re-transmits a superimposed signal to two terrestrial destinations. Assuming the UWOC channel is subject to a unified mixture Exponential-Generalized Gamma (mEGG) distribution and the RF channels experience Nakagami- ${m}$ fading, the analytical as well as asymptotic expression for outage probability is obtained in the form of the Meijer’s $G$ -function. Moreover, the average achievable rate is also investigated by utilizing the bivariate Fox’s $H$ -function. In addition, the accuracy of those expressions is verified with Monte-Carlo simulations.