Resource allocation for NOMA wireless systems

Power-domain non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) has been widely recognized as a promising candidate for the next generation of wireless communication systems. By applying superposition coding at the transmitter and successive interference cancellation at the receiver, NOMA allows multiple users to access the same time-frequency resource in power domain. This way, NOMA not only increases the system’s spectral and energy efficiencies, but also supports more users when compared with the conventional orthogonal multiple access (OMA). Meanwhile, improved user fairness can be achieved by NOMA. Nonetheless, the promised advantages of NOMA cannot be realized without proper resource allocation. The main resources in wireless communication systems include time, frequency, space, code and power. In NOMA systems, multiple users are accommodated in each time/frequency/code resource block (RB), forming a NOMA cluster. As a result, how to group the users into NOMA clusters and allocate the power is of significance. A large number of studies have been carried out for developing efficient power allocation (PA) algorithms in single-input single-output (SISO) scenarios with fixed user clustering. To fully reap the gain of NOMA, the design of joint PA and user clustering is required. Moreover, the study of PA under multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems still remains at an incipient stage. In this dissertation, we develop novel algorithms to allocate resource for both SISO-NOMA and MIMO-NOMA systems. More specifically, Chapter 2 compares the system capacity of MIMO-NOMA with MIMO-OMA. It is proved analytically that MIMO-NOMA outperforms MIMO-OMA in terms of both sum channel capacity and ergodic sum capacity when there are multiple users in a cluster. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the more users are admitted to a cluster, the lower is the achieved sum rate, which illustrates the tradeoff between the sum rate and maximum number of admitted users. Chapter 3 addresses the PA problem for a general multi-cluster multi-user MIMONOMA system to maximize the system energy efficiency (EE). First, a closed-form solution is derived for the corresponding sum rate (SE) maximization problem. Then, the EE maximization problem is solved by applying non-convex fractional programming. Chapter 4 investigates the energy-efficient joint user-RB association and PA problem for an uplink hybrid NOMA-OMA system. The considered problem requires to jointly optimize the user clustering, channel assignment and power allocation. To address this hard problem, a many-to-one bipartite graph is first constructed considering the users and RBs as the two sets of nodes. Based on swap matching, a joint user-RB association and power allocation scheme is proposed, which converges within a limited number of iterations. Moreover, for the power allocation under a given user-RB association, a low complexity optimal PA algorithm is proposed. Furthermore, Chapter 5 focuses on securing the confidential information of massive MIMO-NOMA networks by exploiting artificial noise (AN). An uplink training scheme is first proposed, and on this basis, the base station precodes the confidential information and injects the AN. Following this, the ergodic secrecy rate is derived for downlink transmission. Additionally, PA algorithms are proposed to maximize the SE and EE of the system. Finally, conclusions are drawn and possible extensions to resource allocation in NOMA systems are discussed in Chapter 6

Capacity Analysis and Throughput Maximization of NOMA with Nonlinear Power Amplifier Distortion

In future B5G/6G broadband communication systems, non-linear signal distortion caused by the impairment of transmit power amplifier (PA) can severely degrade the communication performance, especially when uplink users share the wireless medium using non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) schemes. This is because the successive interference cancellation (SIC) decoding technique, used in NOMA, is incapable of eliminating the interference caused by PA distortion. Consequently, each user's decoding process suffers from the cumulative distortion noise of all uplink users. In this paper, we establish a new and tractable PA distortion signal model based on real-world measurements, where the distortion noise power is a polynomial function of PA transmit power diverging from the oversimplified linear function commonly employed in existing studies. Applying the proposed signal model, we characterize the capacity rate region of multi-user uplink NOMA by optimizing the user transmit power. Our findings reveal a significant contraction in the capacity region of NOMA, attributable to polynomial distortion noise power. For practical engineering applications, we formulate a general weighted sum rate maximization (WSRMax) problem under individual user rate constraints. We further propose an efficient power control algorithm to attain the optimal performance. Numerical results show that the optimal power control policy under the proposed non-linear PA model achieves on average 13\% higher throughput compared to the policies assuming an ideal linear PA model. Overall, our findings demonstrate the importance of accurate PA distortion modeling to the performance of NOMA and provide efficient optimal power control method accordingly.Comment: The paper has been submitted for potential journal publication

Channel assembling and resource allocation in multichannel spectrum sharing wireless networks

Submitted in fulfilment of the academic requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Engineering, in the School of Electrical and Information Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2017The continuous evolution of wireless communications technologies has increasingly imposed a burden on the use of radio spectrum. Due to the proliferation of new wireless networks applications and services, the radio spectrum is getting saturated and becoming a limited resource. To a large extent, spectrum scarcity may be a result of deficient spectrum allocation and management policies, rather than of the physical shortage of radio frequencies. The conventional static spectrum allocation has been found to be ineffective, leading to overcrowding and inefficient use. Cognitive radio (CR) has therefore emerged as an enabling technology that facilitates dynamic spectrum access (DSA), with a great potential to address the issue of spectrum scarcity and inefficient use. However, provisioning of reliable and robust communication with seamless operation in cognitive radio networks (CRNs) is a challenging task. The underlying challenges include development of non-intrusive dynamic resource allocation (DRA) and optimization techniques. The main focus of this thesis is development of adaptive channel assembling (ChA) and DRA schemes, with the aim to maximize performance of secondary user (SU) nodes in CRNs, without degrading performance of primary user (PU) nodes in a primary network (PN). The key objectives are therefore four-fold. Firstly, to optimize ChA and DRA schemes in overlay CRNs. Secondly, to develop analytical models for quantifying performance of ChA schemes over fading channels in overlay CRNs. Thirdly, to extend the overlay ChA schemes into hybrid overlay and underlay architectures, subject to power control and interference mitigation; and finally, to extend the adaptive ChA and DRA schemes for multiuser multichannel access CRNs. Performance analysis and evaluation of the developed ChA and DRA is presented, mainly through extensive simulations and analytical models. Further, the cross validation has been performed between simulations and analytical results to confirm the accuracy and preciseness of the novel analytical models developed in this thesis. In general, the presented results demonstrate improved performance of SU nodes in terms of capacity, collision probability, outage probability and forced termination probability when employing the adaptive ChA and DRA in CRNs.CK201

A Comprehensive Survey on Resource Allocation for CRAN in 5G and Beyond Networks

The diverse service requirements coming with the advent of sophisticated applications as well as a large number of connected devices demand for revolutionary changes in the traditional distributed radio access network (RAN). To this end, Cloud-RAN (CRAN) is considered as an important paradigm to enhance the performance of the upcoming fifth generation (5G) and beyond wireless networks in terms of capacity, latency, and connectivity to a large number of devices. Out of several potential enablers, efficient resource allocation can mitigate various challenges related to user assignment, power allocation, and spectrum management in a CRAN, and is the focus of this paper. Herein, we provide a comprehensive review of resource allocation schemes in a CRAN along with a detailed optimization taxonomy on various aspects of resource allocation. More importantly, we identity and discuss the key elements for efficient resource allocation and management in CRAN, namely: user assignment, remote radio heads (RRH) selection, throughput maximization, spectrum management, network utility, and power allocation. Furthermore, we present emerging use-cases including heterogeneous CRAN, millimeter-wave CRAN, virtualized CRAN, Non- Orthogonal Multiple Access (NoMA)-based CRAN and fullduplex enabled CRAN to illustrate how their performance can be enhanced by adopting CRAN technology. We then classify and discuss objectives and constraints involved in CRAN-based 5G and beyond networks. Moreover, a detailed taxonomy of optimization methods and solution approaches with different objectives is presented and discussed. Finally, we conclude the paper with several open research issues and future directions