Performance Analysis of NOMA Beamforming Multiple Users
Relay Systems
Hoang Duc
. Vinh Pham Thanh
Vietnam post Le Quy Don Technical University
Ha Noi, Viet Nam. Ha Noi, Viet Nam.
Email: vinhhd01062016@gmail.com phamthanhhiep@gmail.com
Vu Van
. Son
Le Quy Don Technical University
Ha Noi, Viet Nam.
sontlc246@gmail.com
Abstract—In order to improve performance of multiple users
(MUs) systems, several relays are deployed to help a base station
(BS) decode and forward signals to end users. We propose
that the BS utilize a beamforming approach to transmit its
signal to relays, and then relays forward the received signals
to users by non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) scheme.
The system performance is shown through a close-form out-
age probability over Rayleigh fading channel with assumption
of perfect successive interference cancellation. The calculation
results are compared with simulation results to verify our
theoretical analysis. Furthermore, the proposed combination of
NOMA and beamforming method is compared with orthogonal
multiple access method and an impact of imperfect channel state
information on the system performance is also discussed.
Index Terms—Non-orthogonal multiple access, close-form out-
age probability, Successive interference cancellation.
I. I NTRODUCTION
The main technique of NOMA is to use power domain for
multiple access which adopt superposition codes at a transmit-
ter and successive interference cancellation (SIC) method to
detect the desired signals at receivers [1]. While decoding the
received signal, the SIC disposes of superimposed symbols,
and removes the inter-user interference. In downlink NOMA
scenario, less transmit power is allocated to the users that have
better channel condition, whereas more transmit power is allo-
cated to the users that have worse channel conditions [2], [3].
The purpose of this strategy is to achieve a balance between
system throughput and fairness of users [4]. Moreover, NOMA
systems allocate transmit power based on priority of users,
users with higher priority are allocated more power [5], [6].
Different to orthogonal multiple access (OMA) scheme in
which multiple users share radio resources, either in time,
frequency or code, the NOMA system offers better fairness
of users, even for the users with weak channel gain. The
researches of NOMA are focusing on performance of NOMA
aspect of different scenarios and summarized as follows. In [7],
the authors investigated a NOMA downlink system, where all
users locate randomly, and derived the close-form expressions
of outage probability as well as ergodic capacity. In [8], the
. Hiep Tran Manh
. Hoang
Telecommunication University
Nha Trang, Viet Nam.
tranmanhhoang@tcu.edu.vn
authors investigated both downlink and uplink of NOMA sys-
tems. The dynamic power allocation with undertaking QoS for
different users was proposed. Based on the obtained result, the
authors concluded that the proposed dynamic power allocation
can provides more whippiness to fairness performance of all
users. The outage performance and ergodic capacity were
discussed in [9], the authors have analyzed the NOMA system
under condition of fairness of quality for users. In [10], the
authors discussed on NOMA scheme aspect of cognitive radio,
in which the power allocation coefficient is chosen to satisfy
the predefined requirements of user QoS. The authors in [11]
and [12] proposed the NOMA multiple input multiple output
(MIMO) multiple users (MUs) systems and the results shown
that the performance is improved in case MUs are gathered
into a cluster.
According to applying NOMA technology, the bandwidth
efficiency of MUs systems is improved, and then the through-
put is enhanced. These characteristics lead to the fact that
NOMA technology is suitable for MUs system. Furthermore,
the NOMA technology is providing an ultrahigh connectivity
for many billions of electronic devices by using the non-
orthogonal properties. Especially, the design for NOMA sys-
tems has a low-complexity when comparing with other multi-
ple access methods such as: multi-user shared access (MUSA),
pattern-division multiple access (PDMA) and sparse-code mul-
tiple access (SCMA) [13].
In order to improve performance of MUs systems, several
relays are deployed to help a base station (BS) decode and
forward signals to end users. We propose that the BS utilize
a beamforming approach to transmit its signal to relays, and
then relays forward the received signals to users by NOMA
technology. The contributions of the paper are summarized as
follows.
• We propose combination of beamforming at the BS and
NOMA technology at the relay to improve the perfor-
mance of downlink MUs MIMO relay systems, and the
performance of system is analyzed theoretically.
• The close-form expression of outage probability is de-
 rived in order to evaluate the system performance. The
mathematical result is compared with simulation result to
confirm the close-form expressions.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section II
presents the system model of downlink MUs NOMA relay
system. The performance analysis is given in Section III.
Numerical results are presented in Section IV. Finally, the
Section V concludes the work.
II. D OWNLINK MU RELAY SYSTEMS
A. System Model
B. Received signals of users
Assuming that, the minimum mean squared error (MMSE)
is utilized, the channel matrix and the channel coefficient are
denoted by hm and gn , respectively. In addition, ⌦A with
A 2 {SRm , Rm Dn } is the channel gain norm of the hm .
To keep a balance between complexity of implementation
and performance of system, we use zero-force beamforming
(ZFBF) at the BS. We design a weight wm for the mth cluster
to mitigate the interference from the other clusters.
wm can be represented as the projection of hm in the
null space of the interference channels related to the mth
cluster, therefore in order to maximize the channel gain while
canceling the inter-cluster interference. Mathematically, wm is
given as
⇧m hm
wm = , (1)
k⇧m hm k
where ⇧m = IN Hm (HH
m Hm )
1
HH
m and the matrix Hm is
given as

User 1
Hm = [h1 , h2 , · · · , hm 1 , hm+1 , · · · , hM ]T . (2)
Consequently, Hm has one dimension greater than zero, end
User 1 then the signals can be transmitted to the relay.
hH
m wj = 0, 8m 6= j. (3)

User 1 Hence the signals are intended to the mth cluster is given
by
N p
X
xS,m = wm an PS xn , (4)
n=1
User 1
where PS = E{|xS,m |2 }, an denotes the power allocation
PN
BS coefficient for the (n)th user and n=1 an = 1.
The M ⇥ 1 vector xS is broadcast over single cell to the all
relays. The received signal at the relays can be given as
Fig. 1. System model of downlink MUs relay systems N p
X M p
X
yR = hm wm an PS xS,m + hm wj ak PS xS +nm,n ,
The system model of downlink MUs relay systems is |
n=1
{z } |
m=1
{z }
depicted in Fig.1, the relays (R) are located between a base mth beam other beams
station (BS) and users to forward signals of BS to users. Users (5)
are grouped into several clusters, and one relay serves one where xS = [xS,1 , · · · , xS,m 1 , xS,m+1 , · · · , xS,M ]T .
cluster. The direct link from the BS to each user is unavailable We assume that beamforming is perfect, the received signal
due to far distance and showing fading. We assume that the of the mth relay is given as
BS and every relay are configured with Nt and Nr antennas,
N p
X
respectively. The number of clusters equals the number of
relays as M , and the number of users in every cluster is ym,R = hm wm an PS xm + nm,n
n=1
N . According to the NOMA technology and DF protocol, N
the SIC is performed at the relay and users to remove the p X p
= hm wm an PS xm + hm wm am,i PS xm,i
inter-user interference (IUI). xS,m = [xm,1 , · · · , xm,N ]T with | {z }
i=n+1
m 2 [1, . . . , M ], n 2 [1, . . . , N ] and E{|xS,m |2 } = 1 denotes desired signal of (m, n)th user | {z }
the transmit signals of the BS for all the users in the mth interference of other user
n
X1
cluster, and before transmitting to the relay, it is multiplied p
+ hm wm ⇠1 am,k PS xm,k +nm , (6)
by a Nt ⇥ 1 beamforming vector wm , which is assumed to
k=1
be normalize kwm k2 = 1 in order to cancel the inter-cluster | {z }
interference. interference of imperfect SIC

where nm = [n1 , · · · , nN ] 2 C1⇥N with nm ⇠ CN (0, m 2
) where th = 2 1 ↵ 1.
is an i.i.d additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN)Pn 1 pat the mth
relay. In case of perfect SIC, the term hm wm k=1 ak PS xk
equals to zero.
After receiving the signals, the relays re-encode and forward
the signal to the users. The received signal of the nth user in
the mth cluster (hereafter called (m, n)th user) is represented
as follows.
2r
From SNR equations is given in (8) and (9) we have the
outage probability in case of perfect SIC as in (13), it is shown
in the top of the next page.
Now, let us denote, X = |hm wm |2 and Y = |gn |2 for
notational convenience.
Hence the cumulative distribution function (CDF) and prob-
ability density function (PDF) of X and Y are given as

p XN p ⇣ x ⌘K
X1 1 ⇣ x ⌘k
y Dn = gn bn PR xm + gn bi PR xi FX (x) = 1 exp ,
| {z } i=n+1 (1 ⇢)⌦SR k! (1 ⇢)⌦SR
| {z } k=0
desired signal of (n)th user
interference of other user (14)
Xn 1 p
+ ⇠2 bk PR gn xk +wDn . (7)
| k=1
{z } xK 1 ⇣ x ⌘
interference of imperfect SIC fX (x) = K
exp . (15)
(K)[(1 ⇢)⌦SR ] (1 ⇢)⌦SR
With assumption of |g1 |2 <, · · · , < |gN |2 , the SIC process-
Based on the ordered statistics, the PDF of channel gain
ing removes the interference from the other users which have
|gn |2 can be written as [14, eq, (6.58)].
stronger power, i.e., the interference of (k = 1, . . . , n 1)th
users is removed. The signal to interference plus noise ratio fY (y) = N f|gj |2 (x)[F|gj |2 (y)]N 1
. (16)
(SINR) of (m, n)th user at the mth relay and at the end user
is denoted by Rn and Dn , respectively. From (6), we have where
1 ⇣ y ⌘
f|gj |2 (y) = exp , (17)
PS an |hm wm |2 (1 ⇢)⌦RDj (1 ⇢)⌦RDj
Rn = PN . (8)
i=n+1 PS ai |hm wm |2 + 2
R,n ⇣ ⌘
y
From (7), when (bi < bn ) the SINR of the (m, n)th user at F|gj |2 (y) = 1 exp . (18)
(1 ⇢)⌦RDj
the end user under the case of perfect SIC can be given as
After performing some manipulations and simplifications, we
PR bn |gn |2
Dn = PN . (9) have the PDF of |gn |2 on the second hop as
2 2
i=n+1 bi PR |gn | + D,n
XN ✓ ◆ ✓ ◆
Noted that, for the DF protocol, the end-to-end SINR of N ( 1)j 1 j jx
fY (y) = exp .
the (m, n)th user is the minimal value between the two hops j=1
j (1 ⇢)⌦RDj (1 ⇢)⌦RDj
BS ! Rm and Rm ! Dn , it means (19)
e2e = min( Rn , Dn ). (10) From (19) the CDF of Y is given by
N ✓ ◆
" ✓ ◆#
III. P ERFORMANCE A NALYSIS X N j 1 jx
A. Outage Probability FY (y) = ( 1) 1 exp .
j=1
j (1 ⇢)⌦RDj
In this section, the outage probability (OP) of the considered (20)
(m, n)th user is derived, the OP is defined as the probability
that makes the transmission rate of the system fall below According to the properties of CDF is that, FY (1) = 1.
the minimum required data rate. Let r1 , rn (bit/s/Hz) is the We
PN canN let y j ! 1 into (20), lead to have result as
minimum required data rate from BS ! Rm and Rm ! Dn , j=1 j ( 1) 1
= 1. Thus, we can rewrite (20) as
respectively. For simply, we set r1 = rn = r, thus the OP of
N ✓ ◆
X ✓ ◆
the system is calculated as N jy
FY (y) = 1 ( 1)j 1
exp .
j (1 ⇢)⌦RDj
h1 ↵ ⇣ ⌘i j=1
OPDn = Pr log2 1 + e2e (21)
⇣ 2 ⌘
= Pr < 21
2r
↵ 1 (11) Base on CDFs and PDFs of both hop, we derive the outage
e2e
probability.
Substitute e2e in (10) into (11) we have OP of nth user in From (13) we can rewrite as
mth cluster as ! !
2
h i 2
th R th D,n
OPDn = Pr min( Rn , Dn ) < th OPDn =1 Pr X Pr Y
PS (an th ã) PR (bn th b̃)
⇣ ⌘ h ih i
= 1 Pr Rn th , Dn th , (12) =1 1 FX (x) 1 FY (y) (22)
 !
PS an |hm wm |2 PR bn |gn |2
OPDn = 1 Pr PN th , PN th , (13)
i=n+1 PS ai |hm wm |2 + 2
R i=n+1 bi PR |gn |
2 + 2
D,n

2 2
where x = PS (anth Rth ã) and y = P (b D,n b̃) with ã =
th

R n th 0
PN PN 10
a
i=n+1 i and b̃ = b
i=n+1 i . The = has the mean that,
the an > th ã and bn > th b̃ need to satisfy. Otherwise,
an  th ã and bn  th b̃ the outage always occurs, because,
−1
we only consider the X, Y 2 (0, 1). Hence the allocated 10

power for Dn is more than the others.

Outage Probability
To get the close-form for (22) we replace CDF from (14)
and (21) into (22). Finally we have the outage probability 10
−2
ΩSR = ΩRU = 1
expression as 1
ΩRU = 3, ΩRU = 6
2 3
ρ = 0.05
h ⇣ x ⌘KX1 1 ⇣ x ⌘k i
OPDn = 1 exp 10
−3
(1 ⇢)⌦SR k! (1 ⇢)⌦SR
k=0 Analysis
hX N ✓ ◆ ✓ ◆i User 1− Sim
N jy User 2− Sim
⇥ ( 1)j 1 exp . User 3− Sim

j=1
j (1 ⇢)⌦RDj −4
OMA − Sim
10
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
(23) Average SNR [dB]

IV. N UMERICAL R ESULTS

Fig. 2. Outage probability versus SNRs of each user with a1 = 0.6, a2 =
In this section, the numerical results are provided to analyze 0.3, a3 = 0.1
the performance of the NOMA beamforming relay system
in the term of outage probability. The simulation parame- 0

ters are set as follows. The threshold data rates of Dn are 10

r1 = r2 = r3 = 1 [b/s/Hz]. The number of relays is ρ=1

M = 3, and each cluster has three users which are served
instantaneous by one relay. The power allocation coefficient 10
−1

of the (m,P n)th user

p an = (N n + 1)/µ, where µ is chosen
N
such that n=1 an PS = 1. To simplify the system design
Outage Probability

and settings, we assume that the power allocation coefficient ρ = 0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 0.9
at the BS and the relay are the same.
−2
10
ΩSR = ΩRU = 1
In Fig.2, we present the outage probability of each user 1
ΩRU = 3, ΩRU = 6
versus SNR in dB. The performance of the third user is the best 2 3

although the power allocated for the third user is the lowest. 10
−3

The reason is, the third user is the closest to the relay, i.e., the
channel gain between the relay and the third user is the largest.
Furthermore, the IUI at the third user is completely canceled User2 − Imperfect SIC − Sim
Analysis
by SIC processing, the IUI at the other users is still remained. 10
−4

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
From the results, we can see that the analytical results perfectly Average SNRs [dB]

match the simulation results, and compared with orthogonal

multiple access (OMA) system, the performance of first and
second users is lower, whereas the performance of third user
is higher.
The effects of channel estimation error on the system outage
probability is illustrated in Fig.3. The term of correlation
coefficient ⇢, 0  ⇢  1, indicates the correlation coefficient
of true channel state information (CSI) and error CSI, the
smaller ⇢ is, the closer the estimated CSI and the true CSI are.
The curves show that when the ⇢ increases, it means that the
estimation error increases, the outage performance is worse,
especially, when ⇢ = 1 the system is always outage.
Fig. 3. Outage probability versus average SNR with difference the correlation
coefficient and a1 = 0.6, a2 = 0.3, a3 = 0.1, ⇠1 = ⇠2 = 0.05.
V. C ONCLUSIONS
In this paper, the combination of NOMA and beamforming
was proposed for downlink MU systems, and the performance
of the system was analyzed theoretically based on Rayleigh
distribution. The close-form expression of outage probability
is derived and compared with the simulation result. The perfect
match between calculation results and simulation results veri-
fied the theoretical analysis method. Furthermore, the proposed
combination of NOMA and beamforming was compared with
the OMA system, and the advantage each method was dis-
cussed. The imperfect CSI was taken into consideration, and
the impact of CSI on the system performance was analyzed.
However, the imperfect beamforming and the imperfect SIC
should be discussed, we leave this issue for our future works.
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