Enhanced User Grouping and Pairing Scheme for CoMP-NOMA-based Cellular Networks

Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) has been identified as one of the promising technologies to enhance the spectral efficiency and throughput for the fifth generation (5G) and beyond 5G cellular networks. Alternatively, Coordinated multi-point transmission and reception (CoMP) improves the cell edge users’ coverage. Thus, CoMP and NOMA can be used together to improve the overall coverage and throughput of the users. However, user grouping and pairing for CoMP-NOMA-based cellular networks have not been suitably studied in the existing literature. Motivated by this, we propose a user grouping and pairing scheme for a CoMP-NOMA-based system. Detailed numerical results are presented comparing the proposed scheme with the purely OMA-based benchmark system, NOMA only, and CoMP only systems. We show through simulation results that the proposed scheme offers a trade-off between throughput and coverage as compared to the existing NOMA or CoMP based system.