Wireless network virtualization with non-orthogonal multiple access

We study the problem of joint user clustering and resource allocation for wireless network virtualization (WNV) using non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA). We aim to maximize the weighted total sum-rate while taking into account the isolation constraint of the mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs). To solve the non-convex formulated problem, we decouple it into three subproblems, i.e., user clustering, resource block (RB) allocation and power assignment. We apply the framework of matching game with externalities to solve the user clustering problem while the solutions for RB and power allocation are derived by using the Lagrange dual approach and complementary Geometric programming, respectively. An alternative maximization algorithm is provided to achieve a suboptimal solution for the original problem. We propose to classify user equipments (UEs) into three classes, i.e., strong, normal and weak UEs and compare our proposed scheme with general NOMA scheme with two UEs per cluster. Simulation results revel a performance gain of 2.5% in terms of throughput. Moreover, the proposed scheme outperforms the traditional OFDMA scheme in terms of throughput and energy efficiency by up to 40% and 58%, respectively.