Sum Rate Maximization for Intelligent Reflecting Surface-Assisted UAV-Enabled NOMA Network

Abstract

In the next-generation network, intelligent reflecting surface (IRS), non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), and simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) are promising wireless communication techniques to effectively improve system sum rates. In traditional unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) communication systems, the sum rate and coverage are greatly affected when there is an occlusion on the direct transmission link. To solve this problem, the IRS technology is introduced to improve the poor channel conditions. However, most of the previous research on IRS-assisted UAV to optimize system sum rate only considers frameworks that utilize the partially joint-combining techniques of IRS, NOMA, and SWIPT. In this paper, in order to further improve the sum rate of the system, we simultaneously integrate IRS, NOMA, and SWIPT technologies and establish a sum rate maximization optimization problem when the direct link is blocked. Then, an alternative optimization (AO) algorithm based on the maximizing system sum rate is proposed to solve the non-convex optimization problem, in which the IRS location and phase, the reflecting amplitude coefficient, UAV forwarding altitude, and power splitting factor are considered. To let the non-convex and non-linear function be transformed into a convex one, we first use an iterative approach to optimize the position of the IRS. After that, an optimization problem is constructed to maximize the system sum rate with the constraints of the IRS phase shifts, successful successive interference cancellation (SIC), maximum transmit power of base station (BS), and UAV. Numerical results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the traditional orthogonal multiple access (OMA) and algorithms without IRS-assisted links in terms of the system sum rate.