Max-min fairness in downlink non-orthogonal multiple access with short packet communications

In this paper, the performance of non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) technique for communication based on finite blocklength (FBL) codes is studied. NOMA, by co-serving multi users has great potential for achieving low-latency and better spectral efficiency rather than conventional orthogonal multiple access (OMA) techniques. Our goal is to have optimal power allocation to attain fair throughput in a DL-NOMA scenario. The optimization problem is formulated and an analytical approach using optimal solution search algorithm is introduced. Performance of the proposed NOMA system is compared with an OMA scheme which is benefiting from optimal power and blocklength allocation as well. Numerical results show that NOMA significantly improves the users’ fair throughput in FBL regime.