Performance analysis of physical-layer network coding with QPSK modulation in wireless IoT networks

In this paper, we mathematically analyze bit-error rate (BER) and diversity order of physical-layer network coding (PNC) scheme in the two-way relay channel (TWRC) under the assumption of multiple antennas at relay node. We assume the quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) modulation for simple data transmission in IoT applications, and max–min transmit antenna selection (TAS) scheme in the broadcast (BC) phase for achieving full diversity gain. In particular, we obtain the upper bound of BER at the multiple access (MA) phase, while deriving the exact BER performance at the BC phase. To the best our knowledge, the mathematical analysis in this paper is the first analytical results in the literature. Through computer simulations, the analytical results are validated.