Resource Allocation for Enabled-Network-Slicing in Cooperative NOMA-Based Systems with Underlay D2D Communications

Non-orthogonal multiple access technique (NOMA) has appeared at the forefront as a viable solution capable of improving spectral and energy efficiency in fifth-generation (5G) and beyond-5G networks. This study aims at evaluating the benefits of adopting network slicing in cooperative NOMA-based systems with underlay Device-to-Device (D2D) communications. We formulate an optimization problem that maximizes the overall system's throughput while guaranteeing slices' technical requirements. We decouple the problem into two sub-problems: first, assigning the cellular users to resource blocks allocated to each NOMA group and then assigning D2D pairs to NOMA groups. A two-stage resource allocation solution by swapping-based matching theory is implemented. Numerical results show that the proposed scenario outperforms other ones in terms of the overall system's throughput and the number of admitted D2D pairs.