A coordinated non-orthogonal multiple access strategy for integrated terrestrial-satellite networks

In this paper, we investigate the outage probability and ergodic sum capacity of the downlink of the integrated satellite-terrestrial networks (ISTN) with a cooperative non-orthogonal multiple access (CNOMA) scheme, in which a user with better channel condition acts as a relay node and forwards information to the other users. In this paper, a pilot-based channel estimation method is considered which can verify the performance of this scheme with the imperfect channel state information. In this model, all these users are equipped with multi-antennas, and all of them are both in the coverage of a same beam of the satellite. Specifically, the exact analytical expression for the outage probability and ergodic sum capacity of the system is derived. The result shows that this coordinated non-orthogonal multiple access (CNOMA) scheme performs better than that of OMA (TDMA) in this model. Finally, the future research directions are given to further enhance the system capacity.