Performance Analysis of Multi-User Downlink PD-NOMA Under SUI Fading Channel Models

Power Domain Non Orthogonal Multiple Access (PD-NOMA) is a multiple access technique that offers spectral efficiency, low latency and user fairness in 5G networks. This paper evaluates the performance of multi-user downlink PD-NOMA in suburban environments under SUI fading channels. Baseband modulated user signals with phase shifts are allocated power levels in accordance with users distance before the superposition coding is performed at the base station. A multi-level successive interference cancellation (SIC) is performed at the receivers. Bit error rate (BER) performance against signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for up to four users per cluster is compared for all the SUI models corresponding to different suburban terrains with varying vegetation densities. An upper limit on number of users per cluster that are supported at a benchmark BER and SNR values is also evaluated.