Derivation of the closed-form BER expressions for DL-NOMA over Nakagami-m fading channels

TL;DR

This paper derives exact closed-form BER expressions for downlink NOMA over Nakagami-m fading channels, accounting for SIC errors, and validates these expressions through simulations, highlighting the impact of power allocation on performance.

Contribution

It provides the first closed-form BER expressions for DL-NOMA over Nakagami-m channels considering SIC errors, enhancing understanding of NOMA performance.

Findings

BER expressions validated by simulations

Diversity order remains as in OMA systems

Power allocation significantly affects NOMA BER performance

Abstract

NOMA is as a strong candidate for the Future Radio Access Network (FRA) due to its potential to support massive connectivity and high spectral efficiency. However, the most important drawback of NOMA is the error during Successive Interference Canceller (SIC) is implemented because of the inter-user interferences. In this paper, we derive closed-form exact Bit-Error Rate expressions for Downlink(DL) NOMA over Nakagami-m fading channels in the presence of SIC errors. The derived expressions are validated by the computer simulations. It is shown that the m parameter still represents the diversity order like as OMA systems. Besides, the BER performances of users for NOMA have substantially depended on the power allocation coefficient.