Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access-Based Handover for Throughput Enhancement

As non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) technology is considered as a new multiple access scheme in cellular networks, a new handover decision algorithm and operational procedure need to be investigated. In this paper, we apply the NOMA technique to handover situations for throughput enhancement in cellular networks. We first derive the condition of NOMA-based handover (NOMA-HO) theoretically to increase the handover user rate while guaranteeing the rate of paired user in the target cell. From this condition, we define a new measurement parameter called Interference to Background Interference-plus-Noise Ratio (IBINR) and design a practical NOMA-HO procedure for the measurement of IBINRs and the handover decision. Results show that the proposed NOMA-HO scheme significantly improves cell-edge user throughput compared with the classical OMA-based handover schemes.