An Efficient Resource Allocation for Massive MTC in NOMA-OFDMA Based Cellular Networks

To alleviate random access congestion and support massive-connections with less energy consumption for machine-type communications (MTC) in the 5G cellular network, we propose an efficient resource allocation for massive MTC (mMTC) with hybrid non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA)-orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA). First, a hybrid multiple access scheme, including the NOMA-based congestion-alleviating access scheme (NCAS) and OFDMA-based congestion-alleviating access scheme (OCAS), is proposed, in which the NOMA based devices coexist with OFDMA based ones. Then, aiming at maximizing the system access capacity, a traffic-aware resource blocks (RBs) allocation is investigated to optimize RBs allocation for preamble transmission and data packets transmission, as well as to optimize the RBs allocation between NCAS and OCAS for the RBs usage efficiency improvement. Next, aiming at the problem of high computational complexity and improving energy efficiency in hybrid NOMA-OFDMA based cellular M2M communications, this paper proposes an improved low complexity power allocation algorithm. The feasibility conditions of power allocation solution under the maximum transmit power constraints and quality of service (QoS) requirements of the devices is investigated. The original non-convex optimization problem is solved under the feasibility conditions by two iterative algorithms. Finally, a device clustering scheme is proposed based on the channel gain difference and feasible condition of power allocation solution, by which NOMA based devices and OFDMA based devices can be determined. Simulation results show that compared with non-orthogonal random access and transmission (NORA-DT), the proposed resource allocation scheme for hybrid NOMA-OFDMA systems can efficiently improve the performance of access capacity and energy efficiency.