Intelligent Reflecting Surface-Assisted Uplink NOMA for eMBB and URLLC Coexistence

In fifth-generation (5G) and next-generation mobile communication systems, one of the main design objective is to support different types of devices with disparate requirements. While a non-orthogonal coexistence of different services on the radio interface may potentially yield higher spectral efficiency, a significant performance bottleneck is set by the mutual interference between heterogeneous devices. Interference management strategies of different complexity – ranging from treating interference as noise to successive interference cancellation – may be implemented at the base station to address this problem. In this context, this work investigates the role that intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRS) may play in shaping the interference between enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) and ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC) devices. Specifically, we investigate the joint design of power allocation and IRS reflection matrix, and draw conclusions on the relative advantages of decoding strategies at the base station by accounting for the interference management capabilities of an IRS-aided uplink.