Joint Location and Beamforming Optimization for STAR-RIS Aided NOMA-UAV Networks

This work investigates the potential of combining unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and simultaneously transmitting and reflecting reconfigurable intelligent surface (STAR-RIS) in wireless networks. In particular, the signals from UAV can be reflected and transmitted through STAR-RIS to the users on both sides of the surface to provide full-space coverage. We formulate a sum-rate maximization problem in STAR-RIS aided non-orthogonal multiple access UAV networks, where the location and power allocation of UAV, and the passive reflection/transmission beamforming of STAR-RIS are jointly optimized, subject to the quality-of-service requirement. Furthermore, we transform the non-convex problem into a convex one and propose an efficient algorithm to obtain the suboptimal solution to the original problem. Simulation results verify the superiority of the proposed scheme compared to other benchmarks.