The research of power allocation algorithm with lower computational complexity for non-orthogonal multiple access

Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) has very high spectral efficiency and system capacity. NOMA has become one of the most competitive access solutions in 5G systems. In this article, the principle of NOMA is discussed first. Then, the NOMA system capacity optimisation problems are studied. Signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) is an important factor which affects the system capacity. The SINR of current user n is only related to the power allocated to users n+1 to N with high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) but not interfered by users with low SNR. Therefore, a tree topology power allocation (TTPA) algorithm is introduced. When users are allocated to each layer of the tree structure, the current power allocation of each layer will not be affected by the previous layer. Through theoretical analysis, TTPA can achieve the same performance as the full search power allocation algorithm; however, its computational complexity is reduced from exponential to constant. It can be seen from the numerical simulation results that the proposed algorithm can achieve higher system capacity and has lower computational complexity.