Enabling Sphere Decoding for SCMA

In this paper, we propose a reduced-complexity optimal modified sphere decoding (MSD) detection scheme for SCMA. As SCMA systems are characterized by a number of resource elements (REs) that are less than the number of the supported users, the channel matrix is rank-deficient, and sphere decoding (SD) cannot be directly applied. Inspired by the Tikhonov regularization, we formulate a new full-rank detection problem that it is equivalent to the original rank-deficient detection problem for constellation points with constant modulus and an important subset of non-constant modulus constellations. By exploiting the SCMA structure, the computational complexity of MSD is reduced compared with the conventional SD. We also employ list MSD to facilitate channel coding. Simulation results demonstrate that in uncoded SCMA systems the proposed MSD achieves the performance of the optimal maximum likelihood (ML) detection. Additionally, the proposed MSD benefits from a lower average complexity compared with MPA.Comment: Accepted for publication in IEEE Communications Letter

Investigation on Evolving Single-Carrier NOMA into Multi-Carrier NOMA in 5G

© 2013 IEEE. Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is one promising technology, which provides high system capacity, low latency, and massive connectivity, to address several challenges in the fifth-generation wireless systems. In this paper, we first reveal that the NOMA techniques have evolved from single-carrier NOMA (SC-NOMA) into multi-carrier NOMA (MC-NOMA). Then, we comprehensively investigated on the basic principles, enabling schemes and evaluations of the two most promising MC-NOMA techniques, namely sparse code multiple access (SCMA) and pattern division multiple access (PDMA). Meanwhile, we consider that the research challenges of SCMA and PDMA might be addressed with the stimulation of the advanced and matured progress in SC-NOMA. Finally, yet importantly, we investigate the emerging applications, and point out the future research trends of the MC-NOMA techniques, which could be straightforwardly inspired by the various deployments of SC-NOMA

ADMM-based Detector for Large-scale MIMO Code-domain NOMA Systems

Large-scale multi-input multi-output (MIMO) code domain non-orthogonal multiple access (CD-NOMA) techniques are one of the potential candidates to address the next-generation wireless needs such as massive connectivity, and high reliability. This work focuses on two primary CD-NOMA techniques: sparse-code multiple access (SCMA) and dense-code multiple access (DCMA). One of the primary challenges in implementing MIMO-CD-NOMA systems is designing the optimal detector with affordable computation cost and complexity. This paper proposes an iterative linear detector based on the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). First, the maximum likelihood (ML) detection problem is converted into a sharing optimization problem. The set constraint in the ML detection problem is relaxed into the box constraint sharing problem. An alternative variable is introduced via the penalty term, which compensates for the loss incurred by the constraint relaxation. The system models, i.e., the relation between the input signal and the received signal, are reformulated so that the proposed sharing optimization problem can be readily applied. The ADMM is a robust algorithm to solve the sharing problem in a distributed manner. The proposed detector leverages the distributive nature to reduce per-iteration cost and time. An ADMM-based linear detector is designed for three MIMO-CD-NOMA systems: single input multi output CD-NOMA (SIMO-CD-NOMA), spatial multiplexing CD-NOMA (SMX-CD-NOMA), and spatial modulated CD-NOMA (SM-CD-NOMA). The impact of various system parameters and ADMM parameters on computational complexity and symbol error rate (SER) has been thoroughly examined through extensive Monte Carlo simulations