Effective capacity analysis of NOMA with transceiver hardware and SIC imperfections

Abstract

In this paper, we study the performance of the non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) networks. By considering two practical factors of residual hardware impairments (RHIs) and imperfect serial interference cancellation (ipSIC), we adopt effective capacity as a metric to characterize the effects of latency on the performance of NOMA networks and derive the analytical expressions of the effective capacity for the near user (NU) and the far user (FU). For further insights, we provide asymptotic analysis by invoking high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) slope and high SNR power offset. Numerous analytical and simulated results have shown that: (1) The effective capacities of NU and FU are positively proportional to the SNR at low SNR, while at high SNR, the effective capacities approach to the constants; (2) Comparing the two users of the considered NOMA network, the effective capacity of NU shows pronounced advantages under the requirements of low quality of service. (3) RHIs are detrimental to the effective capacities of both NU and FU, especially for the high SNR regime. (4) The effective capacity of NU is limited by ipSIC.