Joint subchannel power allocation for downlink NOMA systems based on quantum carnivorous plant algorithm

Abstract

Currently, most existing research on non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) systems converts power allocation into two independent procedures, i.e., inter-subchannel power allocation and intra-subchannel power allocation. However, improper inter-subchannel power allocation will adversely affect the power allocation process of intra-subchannel. If the power allocations of inter-subchannel and intra-subchannel are optimized simultaneously, it usually needs high computational complexity, and is hard to obtain an optimal solution. To tackle this issue, this paper studies the joint subchannel power allocation for NOMA systems and proposes a new intelligent algorithm called quantum carnivorous plant algorithm (QCPA) for simultaneously optimizing inter-subchannel and intra-subchannel power allocations. Analysis of the convergence of QCPA verified its superior performance on the test functions. By utilizing the optimal solution obtained by QCPA as the power allocation scheme, energy efficiency and sum transmission rate in NOMA systems are significantly increased compared to existing traditional power allocation methods. The results above demonstrate that QCPA effectively addresses test functions and the power allocation problem for NOMA. QCPA possesses favorable convergence in comparison to other comparison algorithms and methods.