Analysis of the spectral performance of Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access

Abstract

Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA) is one of the promising radio access techniques for performance enhancement in next generation cellular communications. Compared to orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA), which is a well-known high-capacity orthogonal multiple access (OMA) technique, NOMA offers a set of desirable benefits, including greater spectrum efficiency. This project presents analysis on downlink spectral efficiency of Non-Orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) in Rayleigh fading environment. The exact average of NOMA spectral efficiency is achieved at different system parameters using a closed form expression. The spectral efficiency of NOMA is also analyzed under different channel conditions including Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) and Nakagami fading.

The project had the following stages; getting an overview of NOMA and OFDMA basics and their spectral efficiency, use of MATLAB software to create the system model and obtain both numerical and simulated results and carrying out results analysis. We were able to compare the spectral efficiency of NOMA with that of OFDMA. This project presents results that show NOMA offering a high spectral efficiency compared to OFDMA and provides some avenues for future research.