Uplink Non-orthogonal Multiple Access Network Research Articles

Enhancing uplink NOMA cooperative networks with RIS-UAV assistance in Nakagami-[formula omitted] fading channels

Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) emerges as a novel communication technology for the 6G networks, boasting advantages such as low cost, high energy efficiency, and wide coverage. To enhance spectrum utilization and ensure signal transmission stability in complex communication scenarios, this paper presents an uplink cooperative non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) transmission network assisted by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) equipped with RIS. Firstly, a direct link is established between near users and the base station, while a decode-and-forward (DF) relay R and RIS-UAV are deployed between far users and the base station to achieve reliable transmission in a dynamic environment through joint NOMA. Furthermore, an incremental cooperative NOMA scheme is proposed for the uplink transmission, where the relay R remains silent if the RIS-UAV successfully transmits the signal of distant users; if the RIS-UAV fails to transmit the signal to the base station, the relay R is activated to complete the communication between distant users and the base station. Then, the base station employs a selection combining (SC) scheme to process the received signals. Finally, exact expressions of the outage probability under various power allocation strategies are derived. The research results indicate that the outage performance improves with an increase in the number of RIS reflection elements. Moreover, the presence of RIS-UAV can reduce the impact of power allocation strategies on the performance of the uplink NOMA network compared to networks without RIS-UAV.

Network sum-rate maximization for network-coded clustered uplink NOMA networks with SWIPT-enabled relays

This paper considers network sum-rate maximization for network-coded clustered uplink non-orthogonal multiple-access (NOMA) networks with simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT)-enabled relays. Specifically, the aim is to perform joint power allocation, power-splitting, and relay selection (J-PA-PS-RS), subject to quality-of-service (QoS) requirements. The formulated problem is excessively computationally-intensive, as it is a non-convex optimization problem. To efficiently solve it, it is split into two sub-problems: (1) joint power allocation and power-splitting per relay, and (2) relay selection. Particularly, a solution procedure is proposed, where the joint user and relay power allocation, and power-splitting per relay sub-problem is solved via a low-complexity iterative three-layer algorithm, and then followed by optimal relay selection. Simulation results have revealed that the proposed solution procedure can efficiently be used to maximize the network sum-rate, achieve near-optimal solutions, and outperform other benchmark schemes, while satisfying QoS constraints.

QoS-based resource allocation for uplink NOMA networks

Nowadays, several next-generation multiple access technologies are proposed, and non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is one of the candidates. In NOMA systems, since the utilization of successive interference cancellation (SIC), the SIC order is one of the significant factors to be considered. In the literature, the SIC order is usually determined by the channel gains, which is not stable especially when the users are with similar channels. In this paper, we creatively propose the quality-of-service-based SIC order in the uplink NOMA system, and focus on the resource allocation to maximize the rate. Specifically, we first optimize the powers with given user grouping and provide solutions for different cases of channel gains. Furthermore, the Hungarian algorithm is jointly exploited with the optimized powers. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms traditional orthogonal multiple access and even achieves similar rate with the exhaustive search.

Physical layer security analysis of IRS-based downlink and uplink NOMA networks

In recent years, the development of intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) in wireless communications has enabled control of radio waves to reduce the detrimental impacts of natural wireless propagation. These can achieve significant spectrum and energy efficiency in wireless networks. Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) technology, on the other hand, is predicted to improve the spectrum efficiency of fifth-generation and later wireless networks. Motivated by this reality, we consider the IRS-based NOMA network in the downlink and uplink scenario with a pernicious eavesdropper. Moreover, we investigated the physical layer security (PLS) of the proposed system by invoking the connection outage probability (COP), secrecy outage probability (SOP), and average secrecy rate (ASR) with analytical derivations. The simulation results reveal that (i) it is carried out to validate the analytical formulas, (ii) the number of meta-surfaces in IRS, transmit power at the base station, and power allocation parameters all play an essential role in improving the system performance, and (iii) it demonstrates the superiority of NOMA to the traditional orthogonal multiple access (OMA).

Performance Analysis of Uplink Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access in the Presence of Co-Channel Interference

In sixth generation (6 G) networks, a massive number of users and devices must be connected, necessitating flexible resource allocation. In this context, non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) has been proposed as a promising technique to enable mass connectivity. This study presents a performance analysis for the impact of co-channel interference (CCI) on uplink NOMA networks. More specifically, it is considered that CCI is introduced by randomly deployed terminals within the cellular coverage area, affecting the reception of the base station (BS) in the uplink. In this network, fading conditions follow the Rayleigh distribution and two cases are examined for the CCI statistics, i.e. independent and identically distributed, and independent but not identically distributed. A thorough performance analysis is conducted to derive the outage probability, ergodic rate, error probability, achievable sum-rate, and throughput expressions, highlighting the adverse effects of CCI on the uplink NOMA network. Furthermore, an asymptotic analysis is provided, shedding light on the derived analytical results. Towards improving the performance of uplink NOMA, power allocation is formulated as an optimization problem, and solved to derive the power allocation coefficient of the users. Our analytical and asymptotic derivations are verified through Monte-Carlo-based computer simulations and it is revealed that the proposed power allocation method achieves significant performance gains, facilitating uplink NOMA.

RIS-Enhanced Secure Transmission in MTC Networks With Finite Blocklength

In this paper, we propose a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) assisted secure finite blocklength transmission framework in machine-type communications (MTC) networks, where the integration of millimeter-wave (mmWave) communication and non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) technology is considered to alleviate the problem of insufficient spectrum resources caused by massive MTC devices (MTCDs). For improving the ability of anti-eavesdropping, we aim to maximize the achievable sum secrecy capacity (SC) by jointly optimize the MTCDs’ transmission power, RIS phase coefficient and receive beamforming design. To handle the nonconvexity of the proposed optimization problem, we decouple it into three sub-problems, where the first two are solved by successive convex approximation (SCA) method. A minimum mean squared error successive interference cancellation (MMSE-SIC) scheme is proposed to tackle the receive beamforming problem for uplink NOMA networks. Furthermore, an alternating optimization based joint power, phase, and beamforming allocation (AO-JPPBA) algorithm is developed to implement joint optimization. Simulation results show that: 1) the security performance of the proposed AO-JPPBA is improved by 612.26% than the baseline scheme; 2) the proposed MMSE-SIC beamforming scheme is more effective in improving sum-SC of uplink NOMA networks; 3) RIS’s location has an obvious impact on sum-SC when considering eavesdroppers with strong wiretapping ability.

Joint resource scheduling and trajectory design for multi-UAV-assisted uplink NOMA networks

The combination of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communication and non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is of great significance to support massive connections in the Internet of things (IoT). This paper studies a multi-UAV-assisted communication network, where the UAVs are employed as aerial access points to receive data from IoT nodes with NOMA adopted for uplink transmission. The aim is to maximize the average sum rate of the network, with the requirements of the individual upload of each node. To handle the node clustering problem, the spectral clustering and maximum weight matching algorithm are first integrated to divide the IoT nodes. Then, the time-varying NOMA user grouping scheme is implemented accordingly. Furthermore, by considering the trajectory decomposition and successive hover-and-fly structure, the complex UAV trajectory problem is transformed into a linear programming and the optimal time-continuous trajectory is achieved. Extensive simulations validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms for the UAV-assisted NOMA network.

Semi-Grant-Free NOMA: A Stochastic Geometry Model

Grant-free (GF) transmission holds promise in terms of low latency communication by directly transmitting messages without waiting for any permissions. However, collision situations may frequently happen when limited spectrum is occupied by numerous GF users. The non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) technique can be a promising solution to achieve massive connectivity and fewer collisions for GF transmission by multiplexing users in power domain. We utilize a semi-grant-free (semi-GF) NOMA scheme for enhancing network connectivity and spectral efficiency by enabling grant-based (GB) and GF users to share the same spectrum resources. With the aid of semi-GF protocols, uplink NOMA networks are investigated by invoking stochastic geometry techniques. We propose a novel <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">dynamic protocol</i> to interpret which part of the GF users are allocated in NOMA transmissions via transmitting various channel quality thresholds by an added handshake. We utilize open-loop protocol with a fixed average threshold as the benchmark to investigate performance improvement. It is observed that dynamic protocol provides more accurate channel quality thresholds than open-loop protocol, thereby the interference from the GF users is reduced to a large extent. We analyze the outage performance and diversity gains under two protocols. Numerical results demonstrate that dynamic protocol is capable of enhancing the outage performance than open-loop protocol.

Time Switching Based Wireless Powered Relay Transmission with Uplink NOMA.

Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) utilizes power domain multiplexing to improve spectrum efficiency compared with orthogonal multiple access (OMA). In the Internet of Things (IoT) uplink NOMA networks, if the channel between the far-end node and the base station is in deep fading, allocating larger transmitting power for this node cannot achieve higher spectrum efficiency and overall system throughput. Relay cooperative communication reduces the transmitting power at the far-end node but leads to extra energy expenditure at the relay node. Fortunately, simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) is advocated in energy-constrained IoT networks to save energy consumption. However, early works all focus on energy harvesting (EH) from one source node or one dedicated power supply station. In this paper, we propose a time switching based wireless powered relay transmission model with uplink NOMA where our EH technique can harvest energy from two simultaneously transmitting nodes. More importantly, by optimizing relay position more energy is harvested from the near-end node at the relay and relay signal attenuation to the destination is reduced as well. Furthermore, the closed-form expressions of outage probability and overall system throughput are derived, and numerical results prove that NOMA in our EH scheme achieves better performance compared to the traditional EH scheme and OMA by optimizing the position of the relay node, time switching factor and so on.

PSO‐Based UAV Deployment and Dynamic Power Allocation for UAV‐Enabled Uplink NOMA Network

Recently, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been used as flying base stations (BSs) to take advantage of line‐of‐sight (LOS) connectivity and efficiently enable fifth‐generation (5G) and cellular network coverage and data rates. On the other hand, nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is a promising technique to help achieve unprecedented requirements by simultaneously allowing multiple users to send data over the same resource block. In this paper, we study a UAV‐enabled uplink NOMA network, where the UAV collects data from ground users while flying at a certain altitude. Unlike all existing work on this topic, this study consists of two stages. In the first stage, we use the well‐known Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm, which is a metaheuristic algorithm, to deploy the UAV in 3D space, so that the users’ sum pathlosses are minimized. In the second stage, we investigate the user pairing problem and propose a dynamic power allocation technique for determining the user’s power allocation coefficients, as well as a closed‐form equation for the ergodic sum‐rate. Results show our PSO‐based algorithm prevailing over the Genetic Algorithm (GA) and random deployment methods. The proposed dynamic power allocation strategy maximizes the network’s ergodic sum‐rate and outperforms the fixed power allocation strategy. Additionally, the results reveal that the best pairing scheme is the one that keeps uniform channel gain difference in the same pair.

Cooperative Transmission in Uplink NOMA Networks with Wireless Power Transfer

5G networks and wireless power transfer are the topics that have attracted both academic and industry communities in recent years. In this paper, we study the cooperative transmission of uplink non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) network with wireless power transfer in terms of performance analysis. Specifically, energy-constrained amplifyand-forward relay cooperates with two users that applying NOMA scheme to transmit the message to base station by using the energy harvested from base station. For performance analysis, we derive the closed-form expressions of outage probability and throughput for two users based on the statistical characteristics of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and signalto-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) by using the Gaussian-Chebyshev quadrature method. To understand more detail of the behaviour of this considered system, the numerical results are provided according to the system key parameters, e.g., transmit power, distances. Furthermore, the theoretical results are also verified by the Monte-Carlo simulation.

Power allocation scheme for downlink and uplink NOMA networks

Resource allocation problem is a key issue in multi-carrier non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) networks. Maximum access problem and power allocation problem are two important problems in resource allocation problem. In this study, two algorithms are proposed to solve the two problems for multi-carrier NOMA networks, namely mixed integer programming algorithm (MIPA) and dynamic power allocation algorithm (DPAA). In order to solve the maximum access problem, a MIPA is proposed in uplink multi-carrier NOMA networks. For the power allocation problem, a DPAA is proposed in downlink multi-carrier NOMA networks. Simulation results show that MIPA can increase the number of supported users compared to other schemes, DPAA can improve user data rate by increasing mean channel quality indicator and make power allocation more reasonable. According to DPAA, the gains of weighted sum-rate utility per subcarrier can be improved with the increase in the number of subcarriers. Simulation results also show that the proposed scheme is superior to reservation channel technique in terms of the probability of call dropping and probability of call blocking.

Delay Minimization for Massive Internet of Things With Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access

Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA) provides potential solutions for the stringent requirements of the Internet of Things (IoT) on low latency and high reliability. In this paper, we jointly consider user scheduling and power control to investigate the access delay minimization problem (ADMP) for the uplink NOMA networks with massive IoT devices. Specifically, the ADMP is formulated as a mixed-integer and non-convex programming problem with the objective to minimize the maximum access delay of all devices under individual data transmission demand. We prove that the ADMP is NP-hard. To tackle this hard problem, we divide it into two subproblems, i.e., the user scheduling subproblem (USP) and the power control subproblem (PCP), and then propose an efficient algorithm to solve them in an iterative manner. In particular, the USP is recast as a K-CUT problem and solved by a graph-based method. For the PCP, we devise an iterative algorithm to solve it optimally leveraging the standard interference function. Simulation results indicate that our algorithm has good convergence and can significantly reduce the access delay in comparison with other schemes.

Meta Distribution of SIR in Large-Scale Uplink and Downlink NOMA Networks

We develop an analytical framework to derive the meta distribution and moments of the conditional success probability (CSP), which is defined as success probability for a given realization of the transmitters, in large-scale co-channel uplink and downlink non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) networks with one NOMA cluster per cell. The moments of CSP translate to various network performance metrics such as the standard success or signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) coverage probability (which is the 1-st moment), the mean local delay (which is the −1st moment in a static network setting), and the meta distribution (which is the complementary cumulative distribution function of the success or SIR coverage probability and can be approximated by using the 1st and 2nd moments). For the uplink NOMA network, to make the framework tractable, we propose two point process models for the spatial locations of the inter-cell interferers by utilizing the base station (BS)/user pair correlation function. We validate the proposed models by comparing the second moment measure of each model with that of the actual point process for the inter-cluster (or inter-cell) interferers obtained via simulations. For downlink NOMA, we derive closed-form solutions for the moments of the CSP, success (or coverage) probability, mean local delay, and meta distribution for the users. As an application of the developed analytical framework, we use the closed-form expressions to optimize the power allocations for downlink NOMA users in order to maximize the success probability of a given NOMA user with and without latency constraints. Closed-form optimal solutions for the transmit powers are obtained for two-user NOMA scenario. We note that maximizing the success probability with latency constraints can significantly impact the optimal power solutions for low SIR thresholds and favor orthogonal multiple access.