Threshold Based Signal Detection and the Average Symbol Error Probability for Downlink NOMA Systems With M-ary QAM

Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is a technique which allows multiple users to share the same radio access resources. However, there exist interferences among these users in the NOMA system. These interferences need to be taken into account in the signal detection and error performance analysis. In the downlink NOMA system, the far user detects its signal by treating the near user's signal as interference, while the near user employs successive interference cancellation (SIC) to detect its signal. Based on the conventional signal detection, it is not straightforward to derive the error performance for both the far user and near user. By analyzing the constellation relationships between the far user's signal and superposition coded (SC) signal, and the near user's signal and SC signal, in this article, a simple threshold based detection algorithm is proposed to detect both the far user's signal and near user's signal. Furthermore, by aid of the constellation relationships, in this article, simple expressions of the average symbol error probability (ASEP) with squared M -ary quadrature amplitude modulation for both the far user and near user are easily derived in Rayleigh fading channels. Simulation results validate the derived theoretical ASEP results.