Energy Efficiency and User Capacity Optimization of Cognitive MIMO Systems Via the SCMA-Based Nonorthogonal Time Slot Allocation

Abstract

This paper investigates the energy-efficient communications and user capacity in the cognitive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) symmetric system of underlay mode. The advantage of the improved energy efficiency provided by the orthogonal slot allocation for time division multiple access (TDMA) has a side effect of restricting the number of users accessing the system. To tackle the above problem, this paper proposes a nonorthogonal time resource allocation method with sparse code multiple access (SCMA), which allows one to convert the orthogonal slot units of TDMA into non-orthogonal shared slot units for multiple secondary users (SUs). The method of adding virtual users is adopted, wherein each SU is treated as multiple SUs who occupy a shared unit, to facilitate the packet access. Finally, the greedy algorithm is applied to optimize the time slot allocation of unoccupied shared slot units. The simulation results show that SCMA-based nonorthogonal slot allocation can reduce not only the energy consumption by nearly 40%, but also the average power interference from SUs to primary users by nearly 2 dB if their number is relatively high. Moreover, in the case of satisfying the rate requirement of the users, the system user capacity increased by more than 50%.