Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access for Dual-Hop Decode-and-Forward Relaying

Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is a promising multiple access technique for future wireless communications as it results in high spectral efficiency. NOMA differs from recently adopted orthogonal multiple access techniques in that it superimposes multiple data flows at the same time and same frequency band but with different power levels, and resorts to the successive interference cancellation (SIC) for data decoding. This paper studies NOMA in a dual-hop decode-and-forward (DF) relaying where two relays cooperate to deliver messages to the destination. Specifically, the achievable sum-rate is analyzed and a optimal power allocation (PA) scheme is designed for the proposed system. Performance comparison with the two conventional cooperative schemes that rely on the maximal ratio combining (MRC) and the max-min criterion, respectively, is also made. Comparison results reveal the advantages of the proposed scheme on not only the sum-rate, but also the energy efficiency.