This paper considers a wireless network with a base station (BS) conducting timely transmission to two clients in a slotted manner via hybrid non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA)/orthogonal multiple access (OMA). Specifically, the BS is able to adaptively switch between NOMA and OMA for the downlink transmission to minimize the information freshness, characterized by Age of Information (AoI), of the network. If the BS chooses OMA, it can only serve one client within a time slot and should decide which client to serve; if the BS chooses NOMA, it can serve both clients simultaneously and should decide the power allocated to each client. To minimize the weighted sum of expected AoI of the network, we formulate a Markov Decision Process (MDP) problem and develop an optimal policy for the BS to decide whether to use NOMA or OMA for each downlink transmission based on the instantaneous AoI of both clients. We prove the existence of optimal stationary and deterministic policy, and perform action elimination to reduce the action space for lower computation complexity. The optimal policy is shown to have a switching-type property with obvious decision switching boundaries. A suboptimal policy with lower computation complexity is also devised, which can achieve near-optimal performance according to our simulation results. The performance of different policies under different system settings is compared and analyzed in numerical results to provide useful insights for practical system designs.
In this paper, we compare the resource allocation fairness of uplink communications between non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) schemes and orthogonal multiple access (OMA) schemes. Through characterizing the contribution of the individual user data rate to the system sum rate, we analyze the fundamental reasons that NOMA offers a more fair resource allocation than that of OMA in asymmetric channels. Furthermore, a fairness indicator metric based on Jain's index is proposed to measure the asymmetry of multiuser channels. More importantly, the proposed metric provides a selection criterion fo…
In this paper, we compare the individual rate of MIMO-NOMA and MIMO-OMA when users are paired into clusters. A power allocation (PA) strategy is proposed, which ensures that MIMO-NOMA achieves a higher individual rate for each user than MIMO-OMA with arbitrary PA and optimal degrees of freedom split. In addition, a special case with equal degrees of freedom and arbitrary PA for OMA is considered, for which the individual rate superiority of NOMA still holds. Moreover, it is shown that NOMA can attain better fairness through appropriate PA. Finally, simulations are carried out, which validate t…
In this paper, we examine the potentials of Non- Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA), currently rivaling Orthogonal Multiple Access (OMA) in 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standardization for future 5G networks Machine Type Communications (MTC), in the framework of minimizing the average Age of Information (AoI). By leveraging the notion of Stochastic Hybrid Systems (SHS), we find the total average AoI of the network in simple NOMA and conventional OMA environments. Armed with this, we provide a comparison between the two schemes in terms of average AoI. Interestingly, it will be show…
While existing works about non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) have indicated that NOMA can yield a significant performance gain over orthogonal multiple access (OMA) with fixed resource allocation, it is not clear whether such a performance gain will diminish when optimal resource (Time/Frequency/Power) allocation is carried out. In this paper, the performance comparison between NOMA and conventional OMA systems is investigated, from an optimization point of view. Firstly, by using the idea of power splitting, a closed-form expression for the optimum sum rate of NOMA systems is derived. The…
In this paper, we investigate the performance gain of non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) over orthogonal multiple access (OMA) in uplink single-cell systems. In both single-antenna and multi-antenna scenarios, the performance gain of NOMA over OMA in terms of asymptotic ergodic sum-rate is analyzed for a sufficiently large number of users. In particular, in single-antenna systems, we identify two types of near-far gains brought by NOMA: 1) the large-scale near-far gain via exploiting the large-scale fading increases with the cell size; 2) the small-scale near-far gain via exploiting the sma…
In this paper, we investigate the latency performance of non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) and orthogonal multiple access (OMA) technologies in finite blocklength regime. In the comparative study, we derive the achievable effective capacity of two-user NOMA and its OMA counterpart under delay quality-of-service constraints. We then obtain closed-form expressions for the achievable effective capacity of the weak and strong users in both scenarios considering transmissions over Rayleigh fading channels. Numerical results are provided. In particular, it is shown that at low signal-to-noise ra…
In this paper, we find trajectory planning and power allocation for a vehicular network in which an unmanned-aerial-vehicle (UAV) is considered as a relay to extend coverage for two disconnected far vehicles. We show that in a two-user network with an amplify-and-forward (AF) relay, non-orthogonal-multiple-access (NOMA) always has better or equal sum-rate in comparison to orthogonal-multiple-access (OMA) at high signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) regime. However, for the cases where i) base station (BS)-to-relay link is weak, or ii) two users have similar links, or iii) BS-to-relay link is similar to…
In this paper, we study the performance of an uplink non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) network under statistical quality of service (QoS) delay constraints, captured through each user s effective capacity (EC). We first propose novel closed-form expressions for the EC in a two-user NOMA network and show that in the high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) region, the 'strong' NOMA user, referred to as U2, has a limited EC, assuming the same delay constraint as the 'weak' user, referred to as U1. We demonstrate that for the weak userU1, OMA and NOMA have comparable performance at low transmit SNRs,…
In the fifth generation and beyond (B5G), delayconstraints emerge as a topic of particular interest, e.g. forultra-reliable low latency communications (URLLC) such asautonomous vehicles and enhanced reality. In this paper, westudythe performance of a two-user uplink NOMA network understatistical quality of service (QoS) delay constraints, capturedthrough each user s effective capacity (EC). We propose novelclosed-form expressions for the EC of the NOMA users andshow that in the high signal to noise ratio (SNR) region, the 'strong' NOMA user has a limited EC, assuming the same delayconstraint a…
This paper considers a wireless network with a base station (BS) conducting timely status updates to multiple clients via adaptive non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA)/orthogonal multiple access (OMA). Specifically, the BS is able to adaptively switch between NOMA and OMA for the downlink transmission to optimize the information freshness of the network, characterized by the Age of Information (AoI) metric. If the BS chooses OMA, it can only serve one client within each time slot and should decide which client to serve; if the BS chooses NOMA, it can serve more than one client at the same tim…
Considering a two-user multi-antenna Broadcast Channel, this paper shows that linearly precoded Rate-Splitting (RS) with Successive Interference Cancellation (SIC) receivers is a flexible framework for non-orthogonal transmission that generalizes, and subsumes as special cases, four seemingly different strategies, namely Space Division Multiple Access (SDMA) based on linear precoding, Orthogonal Multiple Access (OMA), Non- Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA) based on linearly precoded superposition coding with SIC, and physical-layer multicasting. The paper studies the sum-rate and shows analyti…
This paper investigates unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) data collection systems with different multiple access schemes, where a rotary-wing UAV is dispatched to collect data from multiple ground nodes (GNs). Our goal is to maximize the minimum UAV data collection throughput from GNs for both orthogonal multiple access (OMA) and non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) transmission, subject to the energy budgets at both the UAV and GNs, namely \emph{double energy limitations}. 1) For OMA, we propose an efficient algorithm by invoking alternating optimization (AO) method, where each subproblem is alt…
In this paper, we investigate and reveal the ergodic sum-rate gain (ESG) of non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) over orthogonal multiple access (OMA) in uplink cellular communication systems. A base station equipped with a single-antenna, with multiple antennas, and with massive antenna arrays is considered both in single-cell and multi-cell deployments. In particular, in single-antenna systems, we identify two types of gains brought about by NOMA: 1) a large-scale near-far gain arising from the distance discrepancy between the base station and users; 2) a small-scale fading gain originating…
Non Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA) is a key technique to satisfy large users densities in future wireless networks. However, NOMA may provide poor performance compared to Orthogonal Multiple Access (OMA) due to inter-user interference. In this paper, we obtain closed-form expressions of the uplink NOMA and OMA throughputs when no Channel State Information at Transmitter (CSIT) is available, and of the average data rates assuming that instantaneous rates should be larger than a minimum threshold when full CSIT is available. Analytical comparisons of OMA and NOMA prove that there is no global…
In this paper, the performance of multiple-input multiple-output non-orthogonal multiple access (MIMO-NOMA) is investigated when multiple users are grouped into a cluster. The superiority of MIMO-NOMA over MIMO orthogonal multiple access (MIMO-OMA) in terms of both sum channel capacity and ergodic sum capacity is proved analytically. 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. On this basis, a user admission scheme is proposed, which i…
This paper investigates the performance of reconfigurable intelligent surface assisted two-way non-orthogonal multiple access (RIS-TW-NOMA) networks, where a pair of users exchange their information through a RIS. The influence of imperfect successive interference cancellation on RIS-TW-NOMA is taken into account. To evaluate the potential performance of RIS-TW-NOMA, we derive the exact and asymptotic expressions of outage probability and ergodic rate for a pair of users. Based on the analytical results, the diversity orders and high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) slopes are obtained in the high …
This paper investigates the performance of a two-user downlink non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) system using hybrid automatic repeat request with chase combining (HARQ-CC) in finite blocklength. First, an analytical framework is developed by deriving closed-form approximations for the individual average block error rate (BLER) of the near and the far user. Based upon that, the performance of NOMA is discussed in comparison to orthogonal multiple access (OMA), which draws the conclusion that NOMA outperforms OMA in terms of user fairness. Further, an algorithm is devised to determine the r…
The aim of this paper is to exploit cognitive-ratio inspired NOMA (CR-NOMA) transmission to reduce the age of information in wireless networks. In particular, two CR-NOMA transmission protocols are developed by utilizing the key features of different data generation models and applying CR-NOMA as an add-on to a legacy orthogonal multiple access (OMA) based network. The fact that the implementation of CR-NOMA causes little disruption to the legacy OMA network means that the proposed CR-NOMA protocols can be practically implemented in various communication systems which are based on OMA. Closed-…
Simultaneously transmitting and reflecting reconfigurable intelligent surface (STAR-RIS) is a promising technology to achieve full-space coverage. This paper investigates the resource allocation problem in a STAR-RIS-assisted multi-carrier communication network. To maximize the system sum-rate, a joint optimization problem for orthogonal multiple access (OMA) is first formulated, which is a mixed-integer non-linear programming problem. To solve this challenging problem, we first propose a channel assignment scheme utilizing matching theory and then invoke the alternating optimization-based met…
In this paper, we introduce a clustered millimeter wave network with non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), where the base station (BS) is located at the center of each cluster and all users follow a Poisson Cluster Process. To provide a realistic directional beamforming, an actual antenna pattern is deployed at all BSs. We provide a nearest-random scheme, in which near user is the closest node to the corresponding BS and far user is selected at random, to appraise the coverage performance and universal throughput of our system. Novel closed-form expressions are derived under a loose network a…
In this work, we address the problem of finding globally optimal power allocation strategies to maximize the users sum-rate (SR) as well as system energy efficiency (EE) in the downlink of single-cell multicarrier non-orthogonal multiple access (MC-NOMA) systems. Each NOMA cluster includes a set of users in which the well-known superposition coding (SC) combined with successive interference cancellation (SIC) technique is applied among them. By obtaining the closed-form expression of intra-cluster power allocation, we show that MC-NOMA can be equivalently transformed to a virtual orthogonal mu…
We study whether using non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) in the uplink of a mobile network can improve the performance over orthogonal multiple access (OMA) when the system requires ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC). To answer this question, we first consider an ideal system model with perfect channel state information (CSI) at the transmitter and long codewords, where we determine the optimal decoding orders when the decoder uses successive interference cancellation (SIC) and derive closed-form expressions for the optimal rate when joint decoding is used. While joint decod…
For downlink multi-user non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) systems with successive interference cancellation (SIC) receivers, and a base-station not possessing the instantaneous channel gains, the fundamental relationship between the target rates and power allocation is investigated. It is proven that the total interference from signals not removed by SIC has a fundamental upper-limit which is a function of the target rates, and the outage probability is one when exceeding this limit. The concept of well-behaved power allocation strategies is defined, and its properties are proven to be der…
A non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) approach that always outperforms orthogonal multiple access (OMA) called Fair-NOMA is introduced. In Fair-NOMA, each mobile user is allocated its share of the transmit power such that its capacity is always greater than or equal to the capacity that can be achieved using OMA. For any slow-fading channel gains of the two users, the set of possible power allocation coefficients are derived. For the infimum and supremum of this set, the individual capacity gains and the sum-rate capacity gain are derived. It is shown that the ergodic sum-rate capacity gain …
Orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS) is being pursued in recent times as a suitable wireless transmission technology for use in high mobility scenarios. In this work, we propose nonorthogonal multiple acess (NOMA) based OTFS which may be called NOMA-OTFS system and evaluate its performance from system level and link level perspective. The challenge lies in the fact that while OTFS transmission technology is known for its resilience to high mobility conditions, while NOMA is known to yield high spectral efficiency in low mobility scenarios in comparison to orthogonal multiple access (OMA). We…
The integration of intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) to multiple access networks is a cost-effective solution for boosting spectrum/energy efficiency and enlarging network coverage/connections. However, due to the new capability of IRS in reconfiguring the wireless propagation channels, it is fundamentally unknown which multiple access scheme is superior in the IRS-assisted wireless network. In this letter, we pursue a theoretical performance comparison between non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) and orthogonal multiple access (OMA) in the IRS-assisted downlink communication, for which th…
In this paper, energy efficient resource allocation is considered for an uplink hybrid system, where non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is integrated into orthogonal multiple access (OMA). To ensure the quality of service for the users, a minimum rate requirement is pre-defined for each user. We formulate an energy efficiency (EE) maximization problem by jointly optimizing 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 resource blocks (RBs) as the two sets of nodes. Base…
In this paper, we propose an online power allocation scheme to maximize the time averaged sum rate for multiple downlink receivers with energy harvesting transmitter. The transmitter employs non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) and/or orthogonal multiple access (OMA) to transmit data to multiple users. Additionally, we consider the scenario where each individual user has a quality of service constraint on its required instantaneous rate. The decisions of total transmit power and power allocation for different users in a given time slot are obtained with the help of Lyapunov optimization techn…
In the fifth generation and beyond (B5G) technologies, delay constrains emerge as a topic of particular interest for ultra reliable low latency communications (e.g., enhanced reality, haptic communications). In this report, we study the performance of a two user uplink non orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) network under quality of service (QoS) delay constraints, captured through each user delay exponents in their effective capacity (EC). We propose novel closed form expressions for the EC of the NOMA users and validate them through Monte Carlo simulations. Interestingly, our study shows that …
The key idea of power-domain non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is to exploit the superposition coding (SC) combined with successive interference cancellation (SIC) technique (called SC-SIC) while reducing the receivers' complexity as well as error propagation. Actually, NOMA suggests a low-complexity scheme, where users are grouped into multiple clusters operating in isolated resource blocks, and SC-SIC is performed among users within each cluster. In this paper, we propose a globally optimal joint intra- and inter-cluster power allocation for any arbitrary user grouping to maximize users'…
In this paper, the minimization of the weighted sum average age of information (AoI) in a multi-source status update communication system is studied. Multiple independent sources send update packets to a common destination node in a time-slotted manner under the limit of maximum retransmission rounds. Different multiple access schemes, i.e., orthogonal multiple access (OMA) and non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) are exploited here over a block-fading multiple access channel (MAC). Constrained Markov decision process (CMDP) problems are formulated to describe the AoI minimization problems co…
The new concept of semi-integrated-sensing-and-communication (Semi-ISaC) is proposed for next-generation cellular networks. Compared to the state-of-the-art, where the total bandwidth is used for integrated sensing and communication (ISaC), the proposed Semi-ISaC framework provides more freedom as it allows that a portion of the bandwidth is exclusively used for either wireless communication or radar detection, while the rest is for ISaC transmission. To enhance the bandwidth efficiency (BE), we investigate the evolution of Semi-ISaC networks from orthogonal multiple access (OMA) to non-orthog…
Internet-of-Things (IoT) technology is envisioned to enable a variety of real-time applications by interconnecting billions of sensors/devices deployed to observe some random physical processes. These IoT devices rely on low-power wide-area wireless connectivity for transmitting, mostly fixed- but small-size, status updates of their associated random processes. The cellular networks are seen as a natural candidate for providing reliable wireless connectivity to IoT devices. However, the conventional orthogonal multiple access (OMA) to these massive number of devices is expected to degrade the …
The fundamental power allocation requirements for NOMA systems with minimum quality of service (QoS) requirements are investigated. For any minimum QoS rate $R_0$, the limits on the power allocation coefficients for each user are derived, such that any power allocation coefficient outside of these limits creates an outage with probability equal to 1. The power allocation coefficients that facilitate each user's success of performing successive interference cancellation (SIC) and decoding its own signal are derived, and are found to depend only on the target rate $R_0$ and the number of total u…
This article focuses on the exploitation of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) in multi-user networks employing orthogonal multiple access (OMA) or non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), with an emphasis on investigating the interplay between NOMA and RIS. Depending on whether the RIS reflection coefficients can be adjusted only once or multiple times during one transmission, we distinguish between static and dynamic RIS configurations. In particular, the capacity region of RIS aided single-antenna NOMA networks is characterized and compared with the OMA rate region from an information…
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are set to feature heavily in upcoming fifth generation (5G) networks. Yet, the adoption of multi-UAV networks means that spectrum scarcity in UAV communications is an issue in need of urgent solutions. Towards this end, downlink non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is investigated in this paper for multi-UAV networks to improve spectrum utilization. Using the bivariate Rician shadowed fading model, closed-form expressions for the joint probability density function (PDF), marginal cumulative distribution functions (CDFs), and outage probability expressions are …
This work introduces, for the first time, non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) into short-packet communications to achieve low latency in wireless networks. Specifically, we address the optimization of transmission rates and power allocation to maximize the effective throughput of the user with a higher channel gain while guaranteeing the other user achieving a certain level of effective throughput. To demonstrate the benefits of NOMA, we analyze the performance of orthogonal multiple access (OMA) as a benchmark. Our examination shows that NOMA can significantly outperform OMA by achieving a …
Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) allows users sharing a resource-block to efficiently reuse spectrum and improve cell sum rate $\mathcal{R}_{\rm tot}$ at the expense of increased interference. Orthogonal multiple access (OMA), on the other hand, guarantees higher coverage. We introduce partial-NOMA in a large two-user downlink network to provide both throughput and reliability. The associated partial overlap controls interference while still offering spectrum reuse. The nature of the partial overlap also allows us to employ receive-filtering to further suppress interference. For signal de…
This paper provides a comprehensive downlink analysis of non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) enabled cellular networks using tools from stochastic geometry. As a part of this analysis, we develop a novel 3GPP-inspired user ranking technique to construct a user cluster for the non-orthogonal transmission by grouping users from the cell center (CC) and cell edge (CE) regions. This technique allows to partition the users with distinct link qualities, which is imperative for harnessing NOMA performance gains. Our analysis is focused on the performance of a user cluster in the typical cell, which…
This work introduces downlink non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) into short-packet communications. NOMA has great potential to improve fairness and spectral efficiency with respect to orthogonal multiple access (OMA) for low-latency downlink transmission, thus making it attractive for the emerging Internet of Things. We consider a two-user downlink NOMA system with finite blocklength constraints, in which the transmission rates and power allocation are optimized. To this end, we investigate the trade-off among the transmission rate, decoding error probability, and the transmission latency m…
Broader applications of the Internet of Things (IoT) are expected in the forthcoming 6G system, although massive IoT is already a key scenario in 5G, predominantly relying on physical layer solutions inherited from 4G LTE and primarily using orthogonal multiple access (OMA). In 6G IoT, supporting a massive number of connections will be required for diverse services of the vertical sectors, prompting fundamental studies on how to improve the spectral efficiency of the system. One of the key enabling technologies is non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA). This paper consists of two parts. In the …
This paper considers uplink multiple access (MA) transmissions, where the MA technique is adaptively selected between Non Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA) and Orthogonal Multiple Access (OMA). Two types of users, namely Internet of Things (IoT) and enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) coexist with different metrics to be optimized, energy efficiency (EE) for IoT and spectral efficiency (SE) for eMBB. The corresponding multi-objective power allocation problems aiming at maximizing a weighted sum of EE and SE are solved for both NOMA and OMA. Based on the identification of the best MA strategy, a c…
Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is a promising technology to enhance the coverage and performance of wireless networks. We consider the application of IRS to non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), where a base station transmits superposed signals to multiple users by the virtue of an IRS. The performance of an IRS-assisted NOMA networks with imperfect successive interference cancellation (ipSIC) and perfect successive interference cancellation (pSIC) is investigated by invoking 1-bit coding scheme. In particular, we derive new exact and asymptotic expressions for both outage probability a…
This paper considers a downlink single-cell non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) network with uniformly deployed users, while a mixed multicast and unicast traffic scenario is taken into account. By guaranteeing the quality of service (QoS) of the multicast traffic, the multicast outage and secrecy unicast throughput performance is evaluated. In particular, two types of partial channel state information (CSI), namely the imperfect CSI and CSI based on second order statistics (SOS), are investigated in the analytical framework. For both two cases, the closed-form approximations for the multica…
In this letter, we propose a non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) based scheme for multi-cell indoor visible light communications (VLC), where cell-edge user is jointly served by multiple cells. Unlike the typical designs in the existing literature, the proposed scheme doesn't involve complex domain and direct current bias addition, which makes the design simple and feasible for real time implementation in indoor VLC. The symbol error rate (SER) of the proposed NOMA scheme is analysed using analytical and simulation results, and is compared with orthogonal multiple access (OMA). It is observe…
The paper investigates the improvement of using maximum ratio combining (MRC) in cooperative vehicular communications (VCs) transmission schemes considering non-orthogonal multiple access scheme (NOMA) at intersections. The transmission occurs between a source and two destination nodes with a help of a relay. The transmission is subject to interference originated from vehicles that are located on the roads. Closed form outage probability expressions are obtained. We compare the performance of MRC cooperative NOMA with a classical cooperative NOMA, and show that implementing MRC in cooperative …
This article investigates the exploitation of semantic communications in multi-user networks. We propose a novel heterogeneous semantic and bit multi-user framework for providing flawless, customized, and intelligent information transmission. We discuss both orthogonal multiple access (OMA) and non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) for the proposed heterogeneous framework, with an emphasis on investigating the attractive interplay between semantic communications and NOMA, namely NOMA enabled semantic communications and semantic communications enhanced NOMA. 1) For NOMA enabled semantic communi…
Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) has been identified as a promising technology for future wireless systems due to its performance gains in spectral efficiency when compared to conventional orthogonal schemes (OMA). This gain can be easily translated to an increasing number of served users, but imposes a challenge in the system reliability which is of vital importance for new services and applications of coming cellular systems. To cope with these issues we propose a NOMA rate control strategy that makes use only of topological characteristics of the scenario and the reliability constraint…
This paper advocates a pair of strategies in non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) communications, where multiple UAVs play as new aerial communications platforms for serving terrestrial NOMA users. A new multiple UAVs framework with invoking stochastic geometry technique is proposed, in which a pair of practical strategies are considered: 1) the UAV-centric strategy for offloading actions and 2) the user-centric strategy for providing emergency communications. In order to provide practical insights for the proposed NOMA assisted UAV framework, an imperfect s…
