Energy-Efficient Design of IRS-NOMA Networks

TL;DR

This paper proposes an energy-efficient algorithm for IRS-assisted NOMA networks that jointly optimizes transmit and reflecting beamforming to enhance system energy efficiency, outperforming traditional methods.

Contribution

It introduces a novel joint optimization algorithm for IRS-NOMA systems that balances sum-rate and power consumption, improving energy efficiency.

Findings

Proposed algorithm outperforms conventional OMA-IRS and NOMA with random IRS phases.

Joint optimization improves energy efficiency without sacrificing system throughput.

Simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Abstract

Combining intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) and non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is an effective solution to enhance communication coverage and energy efficiency. In this paper, we focus on an IRS-assisted NOMA network and propose an energy-efficient algorithm to yield a good tradeoff between the sum-rate maximization and total power consumption minimization. We aim to maximize the system energy efficiency by jointly optimizing the transmit beamforming at the BS and the reflecting beamforming at the IRS. Specifically, the transmit beamforming and the phases of the low-cost passive elements on the IRS are alternatively optimized until the convergence. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm in IRS-NOMA can yield superior performance compared with the conventional OMA-IRS and NOMA with a random phase IRS.