A hybrid downlink NOMA with OFDM and OFDM-IM for beyond 5G wireless networks

In this paper, a hybrid power domain non-orthogonal multiple accessing (NOMA) scheme by the superposition of orthogonal frequency division multiple accessing (OFDM) and index modulated OFDM (OFDM-IM) technologies is presented and named IM-NOMA. It is shown via both computer-based simulations and mathematical analysis that IM-NOMA outperforms the classical OFDM-NOMA in terms of bit error rate (BER) under a total power constraint and achievable sum rate. The system performance of IM-NOMA not only depends on the power difference between the overlapping users but also on features of the OFDM-IM signal. Hence, this scheme is robust against possible catastrophic error performance in case similar power is assigned to the users.