Exact outage probability of a hybrid satellite terrestrial cooperative system with best relay selection

In this paper, we derive the exact outage probability of a hybrid satellite-terrestrial cooperative system (HSTCS). A selective decode-and-forward scheme is implemented between a source node (the satellite) and a destination node (a terrestrial station), and a selection of the best relay terminal is performed. In this proposed system, a two time-slot scenario is considered. During the first time slot, the satellite is broadcasting the information to the terrestrial relays and the destination. In the second time slot, only the best relay is transmitting toward the destination node. Then, both signals are combined using the maximum ratio combining (MRC) technique. The analytical expression of the outage probability is evaluated and is then verified with the simulation. The results show that our analytical expression matched well to the simulation results.