Energy-Efficient Transmission Design in Non-orthogonal Multiple Access

• Published in: IEEE transactions on vehicular technology Vol. 66; no. 3; pp. 2852 - 2857
• Main Authors: Zhang, Yi, Wang, Hui-Ming, Zheng, Tong-Xing, Yang, Qian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.03.2017; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Closed-form solutions; Downlink; Energy efficiency; Energy efficiency (EE); Energy transmission; fractional programming optimization; Mathematical programming; non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA); Nonorthogonal multiple access; Optimization; power allocation; Power consumption; Power management; Programming; Quality of service; Resource management
• ISSN: 0018-9545; 1939-9359
• DOI: 10.1109/TVT.2016.2578949

Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is considered as a promising technology for improving the spectral efficiency in fifth-generation systems. In this correspondence, we study the benefit of NOMA in enhancing energy efficiency (EE) for a multiuser downlink transmission, wherein the EE is defined as the ratio of the achievable sum rate of the users to the total power consumption. Our goal is to maximize EE subject to a minimum required data rate for each user, which leads to a nonconvex fractional programming problem. To solve it, we first establish the feasible range of the transmitting power that is able to support each user's data rate requirement. Then, we propose an EE-optimal power allocation strategy that maximizes EE. Our numerical results show that NOMA has superior EE performance in comparison with conventional orthogonal multiple access.