Multi-Helper NOMA for Cooperative Mobile Edge Computing

The next-generation wireless networks are expected to support a number of computation-intensive and delay-sensitive applications such as virtual reality (VR), autonomous driving, telesurgery and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Since many devices are computation and power limited, mobile edge computing (MEC) has been deemed as a promising way to enhance computation service. In this paper, we propose a novel cooperative MEC that exploits the combination of non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) and multiple helpers. In the proposed system featuring a user, multiple helpers and a base station (BS), the user can simultaneously offload its computation-intensive tasks to the helpers using NOMA when there is no strong direct transmission link between the user and the BS. Then, the helpers can compute and offload these tasks through NOMA. Thus, in the proposed scheme, the computation and offloading modes at the helpers are determined with respect to the optimized task offloading decision factor. The simulation results show that the proposed NOMA-based cooperative MEC significantly increases the total offloading data under the latency constraints compared to the benchmark schemes featuring one helper with strong direct transmission link.