Beamforming Techniques for Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access in 5G Cellular Networks

In this paper, we develop various beamforming techniques for downlink transmission for multiple-input single-output (MISO) non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) systems. First, a beamforming approach with perfect channel state information (CSI) is investigated to provide the required quality of service (QoS) for all users. Taylor series approximation and semidefinite relaxation (SDR) techniques are employed to reformulate the original non-convex power minimization problem to a tractable one. Further, a fairness-based beamforming approach is proposed through a max-min formulation to maintain fairness between users. Next, we consider a robust scheme by incorporating channel uncertainties, where the transmit power is minimized while satisfying the outage probability requirement at each user. Through exploiting the SDR approach, the original non-convex problem is reformulated in a linear matrix inequality (LMI) form to obtain the optimal solution. Numerical results demonstrate that the robust scheme can achieve better performance compared to the non-robust scheme in terms of the rate satisfaction ratio. Further, simulation results confirm that NOMA consumes a little over half transmit power needed by OMA for the same data rate requirements. Hence, NOMA has the potential to significantly improve the system performance in terms of transmit power consumption in future 5G networks and beyond.Comment: accepted to publish in IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technolog

General Framework and Novel Transceiver Architecture based on Hybrid Beamforming for NOMA in Massive MIMO Channels

Massive MIMO and non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) are crucial methods for future wireless systems as they provide many advantages over conventional systems. Power domain NOMA methods are investigated in massive MIMO systems, whereas there is little work on integration of code domain NOMA and massive MIMO which is the subject of this study. We propose a general framework employing user-grouping based hybrid beamforming architecture for mm-wave massive MIMO systems where NOMA is considered as an intra-group process. It is shown that classical receivers of sparse code multiple access (SCMA) and multi-user shared access (MUSA) can be directly adapted. Additionally, a novel receiver architecture which is an improvement over classical one is proposed for uplink MUSA. This receiver makes MUSA preferable over SCMA for uplink transmission with lower complexity. We provide a lower bound on achievable information rate (AIR) as a performance measure. We show that code domain NOMA schemes outperform conventional methods with very limited number of radio frequency (RF) chains where users are spatially close to each other. Furthermore, we provide an analysis in terms of bit-error rate and AIR under different code length and overloading scenarios for uplink transmission where flexible structure of MUSA is exploited.Comment: Partially presented at IEEE ICC 2020 Workshop on NOMA for 5G and Beyond and to be submitted to IEEE Transactions on Communication

Multiple Access in Aerial Networks: From Orthogonal and Non-Orthogonal to Rate-Splitting

Recently, interest on the utilization of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has aroused. Specifically, UAVs can be used in cellular networks as aerial users for delivery, surveillance, rescue search, or as an aerial base station (aBS) for communication with ground users in remote uncovered areas or in dense environments requiring prompt high capacity. Aiming to satisfy the high requirements of wireless aerial networks, several multiple access techniques have been investigated. In particular, space-division multiple access(SDMA) and power-domain non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) present promising multiplexing gains for aerial downlink and uplink. Nevertheless, these gains are limited as they depend on the conditions of the environment. Hence, a generalized scheme has been recently proposed, called rate-splitting multiple access (RSMA), which is capable of achieving better spectral efficiency gains compared to SDMA and NOMA. In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey of key multiple access technologies adopted for aerial networks, where aBSs are deployed to serve ground users. Since there have been only sporadic results reported on the use of RSMA in aerial systems, we aim to extend the discussion on this topic by modelling and analyzing the weighted sum-rate performance of a two-user downlink network served by an RSMA-based aBS. Finally, related open issues and future research directions are exposed.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, submitted to IEEE Journa