Energy-Efficient Cooperative Backscattering Closed-Form Solution for NOMA

In this paper, the energy efficiency of multi-user non orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) systems in the presence of a backscatter device is investigated. The energy efficiency maximization problem is formulated as a tradeoff between the sum rate and the total power consumption and shown to be non-convex. We then derive a closed-form expression of the optimal reflection coefficient. Remarkably, the obtained expression allows the reformulation of the optimization in terms of the power allocation policy into a convex optimization problem that has recently been solved in closed form. This overall solution can then be exploited to reduce the computational complexity of Dinkelbach's algorithm for maximizing the ratio sum rate vs. total power. Simulation results show that the presence of backscatter devices significantly improve the energy efficiency of NOMA systems and reach up to 450% relative gains compared to OMA.