ARQ Assisted Short-Packet Communications for NOMA Networks Over Nakagami-m Fading Channels

Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is expected as a promising technology for satisfying massive connectivity requirements in Internet of Things (IoT). Besides, short-packet communications are a notable characteristic in IoT for low delay transmissions or massive machine-type communications (MTC). The co-channel interference from NOMA and packet error caused by finite packet will reduce system performance. In view of this, this article adopts automatic repeat request (ARQ) to assist short-packet communications for NOMA networks where a near user (NU) and a far user (FU) are paired to share the same non-orthogonal communication resources. The closed-form expressions for average packet error rate (APER) and effective throughput (ET) of both NU and FU are derived over Nakagami-$m$ channels. For gaining an insight into system performance, the performance of the scheme without ARQ is also studied. Results show that ARQ improves APER for both NU and FU, and an optimal power allocation factor or packet length exists for achieving higher ET.