NOMA-Based Coexistence of Near-Field and Far-Field Massive MIMO Communications

This letter considers a legacy massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) network, in which spatial beams have been preconfigured for near-field users, and proposes to use the non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) principle to serve additional far-field users by exploiting the spatial beams preconfigured for the legacy near-field users. Our results reveal that the coexistence between near-field and far-field communications can be effectively supported via NOMA, and that the performance of NOMA-assisted massive MIMO can be efficiently improved by increasing the number of antennas at the base station.

Automated summary

This letter discusses a legacy massive MIMO network that uses preconfigured spatial beams for near-field users and proposes using NOMA principle to serve additional far-field users. The results show that NOMA can effectively support coexistence between near-field and far-field communications, and that increasing the number of antennas at the base station can improve the performance of NOMA-assisted massive MIMO.