Cooperative NOMA, Prototyping and Experimental Evaluation Using SDR

In this paper, we developed a prototype of power domain downlink non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) using software defined radio (SDR). Our key focus was to experimentally evaluate the utility of dedicated relay-cooperative NOMA under diverse channel conditions. Furthermore, instead of using traditional power allocation mechanisms, users are categorized based on quality of service (QoS) requirements. For extensive comparative analysis, a series of experiments are performed to evaluate over-the-air performance of cooperative NOMA. The results indicate that relay-cooperative NOMA outperforms non-cooperative NOMA and yields significant performance gains.