UAV Assisted SWIPT Enabled NOMA Based D2D Network for Disaster Management

Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is an emerging technique for improving wireless connectivity mostly for upcoming fifth generation (5G) networks. An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) assisted downlink NOMA network is considered for the first hop to serve the ground users in a non-functional area (NFA). An NFA indicates the region where the base station (BS) gets damaged due to some natural disasters in a two-hop communication. A device-to-device (D2D) communication is a favourable 5G technology, as it supports direct communication between users without traversing the BS. Furthermore, simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) enabled downlink NOMA assisted D2D network is proposed for the second hop to cover the non-functional or disaster area. In the first hop, we derive the outage probability for both the multiple access schemes, i.e., orthogonal multiple access scheme (OMA) and NOMA. OMA and NOMA to determine whether communication from the first ground node to the destination node is justified. Thereafter, we calculate the sum rate and total power consumption for the second hop to maximize the energy efficiency (EE) in our proposed SWIPT enabled NOMA-based D2D network. To tackle this problem, the Dinkelbach method (Zhao et al. in IEEE Trans Commun 67(5):3723-3735, 2019) is applied for optimizing the power allocation problem to maximize the EE in the network. In addition, a multiple interference cancellation scheme (MIC) is used to get the desired signal at the receiving end. Finally, analytical and simulation results are shown.

Automated summary

This article explores the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in downlink NOMA networks to improve connectivity in 5G networks. The outage probability for both orthogonal multiple access (OMA) and NOMA is derived to determine if communication from the ground node to the destination node is possible. Additionally, power allocation is optimized to maximize energy efficiency, and a multiple interference cancellation scheme is used to enhance signal quality at the receiving end.