Distributed Resource Optimization for NOMA Transmission in Beamforming SATCOM

This work studies the application of nonorthogonal transmission in beamforming (BF) based forward links for next-generation satellite communication (SATCOM) with multiple gateways. With the aim of enhancing the throughput of BF SATCOM systems, the state-of-the-art nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA) technique is exploited by serving multiple users per beam in the same time slot. In this regard, the feeder link limitations and multibeam satellite payload constraints must be considered for BF design and power allocation (PA) optimization in nonorthogonal SATCOM. To address these challenges, distributed resource optimization strategies are investigated for BF and flexible payload power resource allocation in multigateway (multi-GW) nonorthogonal SATCOM systems. Specifically, a per-feed available power-constrained BF strategy via maximization of the worst-user signal-to-leakage-and-noise ratio (SLNR) is explored with local channel state information (CSI) for a distributed operation of GWs. As an upper-bound performance limit, a centralized multilayer BF strategy is processed in a central unit with full global CSI and data sharing. After the BF direction optimization, a weighted sum-rate maximization-based (WSRM-based) power resource optimization strategy is locally applied at each GW to efficiently use the power resources for higher performance increment. The nonconvex WSRM problem, under the constraints of the practical satellite payload power budget, successful successive interference cancellation (SIC) decoding, and minimum data rate, is recast into an equivalent weighted sum-MSE minimization (WMMSE) counterpart for a tractable solution. Finally, an efficient user scheduling is designed to enable the operator to capture a substantial system-throughput gain. Accurate simulations are conducted with the near-to-real coverage area (footprints), the random distributions of users, and interference, relying on geographical locations of users. The results over a realistic simulation environment show the efficiency of our strategies.