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On the Achievable Rates of Uplink NOMA with
2021 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC) | 978-1-7281-9505-6/20/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/WCNC49053.2021.9417538
978-1-7281-9505-6/21/$31.00
Authorized
licensed use limited to: INDIAN
Asynchronized Transmission
Shuangyang Li∗† , Zhiqiang Wei† , Weijie Yuan† , Jinhong Yuan† , Baoming Bai∗ , and Derrick Wing Kwan Ng†
∗ StateKey Lab. of ISN, Xidian University, Xi’an, China
† School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Abstract—Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) has been
widely recognized as a promising multiple access scheme for
realizing next generation wireless communications. Unlike ex-
isting NOMA schemes assuming perfectly time synchronized
user’s signals received at the base station (BS), in this paper,
we investigate the achievable rates of uplink NOMA with asyn-
chronized transmission. By invoking Szegö’s Theorem, we derive
both the upper- and lower-bounds of the achievable rates of
asynchronized NOMA (aNOMA) systems. In particular, we reveal
that the derived lower-bound is essentially the achievable rate for
conventional synchronized NOMA systems, which indicates that
the asynchronization is not necessarily a foe. More specifically, we
show that aNOMA systems are superior to conventional NOMA
systems in terms of the achievable rates with non-sinc shaping
pulses. Important insights are also unveiled based on the derived
bounds. Simulation results confirm the validity of our derived
analysis and demonstrate considerable achievable rates gains of
aNOMA systems over conventional NOMA systems.
I. I NTRODUCTION
The massive growth in the number of wireless commu-
nication devices and sensors has fueled the research ad-
vancement in exploring efficient multiple access solutions for
future Internet-of-things (IoT) networks. In particular, non-
orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) has been recognized
as a promising radio access scheme due to its superiority
in handling massive connectivity [1], which is a crucial
requirement for IoT networks. In contrast to conventional
orthogonal multiple access (OMA) schemes, NOMA allows
more than one users to transmit their information via the same
time-frequency resource block, enjoying the improved spectral
efficiency via exploiting their channel disparities [2]–[4].
Although NOMA has been extensively studied in the past
few years, the majority of published works, e.g., [1], in
the literature assumed perfectly time-synchronous transmis-
sion among NOMA users. However, this assumption is often
unrealistic in practical uplink transmissions, due to the dif-
ferent clock generators adopted at geographically distributed
uplink users and the inherent heterogeneous signal propagation
delays. As a consequence, the signals from multiple users
cannot be synchronously superimposed at the BS as commonly
assumed in the literature [1], [2], [5], [6]. Inspired by this,
the authors in [7] proposed an iterative interference cancella-
tion scheme for asyncronized NOMA (aNOMA) systems and
analyzed the corresponding bit error rate and capacity perfor-
mances. In specific, they considered an orthogonal frequency-
division multiplexing (OFDM)-based aNOMA system where
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INSTITUTE
the pulse shaping filter is time-limited and the inter-user
interference (IUI) caused by asynchronism only originates
from adjacent symbols. However, in typical narrowband IoT
systems, the shaping pulse is normally bandlimited rather than
time-limited. In this case, the IUI caused by asynchronism
originates from all the transmitted symbols of all users,
resulting in a much more complex system model. Therefore,
the analysis and conclusions from [7] cannot be directly
extended to general IoT systems and therefore the theoretical
achievable rate analysis for narrowband aNOMA systems is
still unknown.
In this paper, we investigate the achievable rate for narrow-
band uplink NOMA with asynchronized transmission, where
each user experiences a random link delay. Since the link delay
for each user may randomly vary for each channel realization,
we investigate the upper- and lower-bounds for the achievable
rates of the aNOMA system by taking advantage of the
bandlimited property of the aNOMA signals. To this end, we
first derive the closed-form expression of the achievable rates
under the successive interference cancellation (SIC) detection
and then invoke Szegö’s Theorem [8] to obtain some important
insights on the asynchronized transmission. We note that the
application of Szegö’s Theorem requires the derivation of
the inverse Fourier series of the IUI coefficients, which is
closely related to the spectrum of the employed shaping pulse
and the corresponding link delay. Therefore, we consider the
upper- and lower-bounds of the inverse Fourier series that are
independent from the link delay of each user. Based on the
derived inverse Fourier series bounds, we further derive the
upper- and lower-bounds of the achievable rates for aNOMA
systems. Specially, we characterize the conditions for achiev-
ing the derived rate bounds and show that the asynchronization
actually leads to lesser multiuser interference with non-sinc
shaping pulses under the SIC detection. Therefore, it can be
noticed that aNOMA systems are superior to conventional
NOMA systems in terms of the achievable rates with non-sinc
shaping pulses. Simulation results match our derived analysis
and demonstrate considerable achievable rate gains of aNOMA
systems over conventional NOMA systems.
Notations: ⊗ denotes the convolution operation. I (·; ·) de-
notes the mutual information. I (·; ·|·) denotes the conditional
mutual information. IN ×N denotes the identity matrix of size
N × N . The notations (·)T , (·)∗ denote the transpose and the
conjugate operations for a matrix, respectively. The blackboard
 ,(((:LUHOHVV&RPPXQLFDWLRQVDQG1HWZRUNLQJ&RQIHUHQFH:&1&

bold letter E [·], A, and C denote the expectation operator, an n-th element of the received symbol vector corresponding to
T
energy normalized complex constellation set, and the complex the k-th user yk = [yk [0] , yk [1] , . . . , yk [N − 1]] as
number field, respectively. ∞
yk [n] = r (t) p∗ (t − nT − τ [k])dt
II. S YSTEM M ODEL
−∞
We consider a narrowband uplink single cell multiple access K N
  −1 
system with K users, where each user transmits N symbols, = hl Es [l]xl [m]
i.e., the transmitted symbol vector of the k-th user is given by l=1 m=0
T
xk = [xk [0] , xk [1] , . . . , xk [N − 1]] and the entries in xk × g [m − n, τ [l] − τ [k]] + ηk [n] . (3)
are uniformly taken from the normalized constellation set A. In (3), the term g [m − n, τ [l] − τ [k]] represents the IUI
The transmitted signal sk (t) of the k-th user is of the linear between different users, which is given by
form
N −1 ∞
  Δ
sk (t) = Es [k] xk [n] p (t − nT ), (1) g [k, Δτ ] = p (t) p∗ (t + kT + Δτ )dt
n=0 −∞
∞
where Es [k] is the average symbol energy of the k-th user, 2
T is the Nyquist symbol time, and p(t) is a bandlimited = |Hp (f )| exp (j2πf (kT + Δτ ))df, (4)
real-valued T -orthogonal transmitter shaping pulse with a −∞
∞ 2
normalized energy, i.e., −∞ |p (t)| dt = 1. Without loss of where Hp (f ) is the Fourier transform of p(t) and the second
generality, we consider the root raised cosine (RRC) pulse with equality in (4) is due to the Parseval’s Theorem. In particular,
a roll-off factor β as the transmitter shaping pulse. Assuming we have g [k, 0] = 0 for 1 − N ≤ k < 0 and 0 < k ≤
that the wireless channel between each user and the base N − 1 and g [0, 0] = 1, owing to the T -orthogonal property
station (BS) is slow fading with a specific link delay, the signal of the shaping pulse. On the other hand, the term ηk [n] in
received at the BS is given by (3) denotes the corresponding colored noise sample, where
K
E {ηk [n] ηl∗ [m]} = N0 g [m − n, τ [l] − τ [k]].
 For conventional synchronized NOMA transmission, the
r (t) = hk sk (t − τ [k]) + w (t)
k=1
impact of link delay is assumed to be perfectly eliminated
K N −1 at the BS [2], in which case the received symbol in (3) is
  
= hk Es [k]xk [n] simplified as
k=1 n=0 K
 
× p (t − nT − τ [k]) + w (t) , (2) yk [n] = hl Es [l]xl [n] + η [n] , (5)
l=1
where τ [k] ≥ 0 and hk ∈ C are the link delay and channel where the noise samples η [n] are white due to the T -
coefficient for the k-th user, respectively, and w (t) ∈ C is the orthogonal property of the shaping pulse. Therefore, conven-
additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) at the BS with zero tional synchronized NOMA transmission can be regarded as
mean and one-sided power spectral density (PSD) N0 . For the a special case of aNOMA, where the link delays of different
ease of derivation, we assume τ [1] = 0 and that the delays users are set to zero. Consequently, the sampling indices of
corresponding to all users are sorted in an ascending order, each user are perfectly aligned with each other. Comparing
i.e., τ [1] ≤ τ [2] ≤ . . . ≤ τ [K]. At the BS, the received signal the sampling procedure of aNOMA and conventional synchro-
r (t) is matched-filtered based on the transmitter shaping pulse nized NOMA systems, we can see that the aNOMA system
p(t) and is sampled according to the symbol time in order to has KN received samples (received symbols) at the BS,
obtain a set of sufficient statistics for symbol detection. In while conventional synchronized NOMA only has N received
particular, the sampling procedure after the matched-filtering samples. On the other hand, the aNOMA system occupies a
for aNOMA systems is illustrated in the upper part of Fig. 1, slightly more time resources to be received at the BS compared
where K = 3 users are considered and their link delays are 0, to that of the conventional synchronized NOMA due to the
2 6
5 T , and 5 T , respectively. We refer to the moment of sampling different link delays. However, this extra expense of time
as the sampling index (the vertical dashed lines in Fig. 1) and resource is usually negligible compared to the time duration of
the time difference between adjacent sampling indices as the the user signals in practical system settings [2]. For the ease
sampling spacing, respectively. For the notational simplicity, of presentation, (3) can be equivalently expressed in a matrix
the lower part of Fig. 1 shows the corresponding sampling form,
for aNOMA systems by separating the overlapped signals K 
according to each user. In specific, each user’s signal is yk = hl Es [l]Gl,k xl + ηk , (6)
sampled according to the Nyquist symbol time with respect l=1
to their link delays that are assumed to be known at the where Gl,k is the IUI channel matrix characterizing the IUI
receiver. After matched-filtering and sampling, we obtain the from the l-th user to the k-th user and is given at the top of

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Fig. 1. An example of the sampling for the aNOMA system, where 3 users are considered and their link delays are 0, 25 T , and 65 T , respectively. The vertical
dashed lines represent the corresponding sampling indices. The upper part of the figure indicates the sampling of the received signal after matched-filtering.
By separating the overlapped signals, this sampling procedure for the signal of each user can be represented as shown in the lower part of the figure.

⎡ ⎤
g [0, τ [l] − τ [k]] g [1, τ [l] − τ [k]] ··· g [N − 1, τ [l] − τ [k]]
⎢ g [−1, τ [l] − τ [k]] g [0, τ [l] − τ [k]] ··· g [N − 2, τ [l] − τ [k]] ⎥
⎢ ⎥
Gl,k = ⎢ .. .. .. ⎥. (7)
⎣ . . . ⎦
g [1 − N, τ [l] − τ [k]] g [2 − N, τ [l] − τ [k]] ··· g [0, τ [l] − τ [k]]

this page. It can be shown that Gl,k is a Toeplitz matrix and Lemma 1 (Conditional Mutual Information for SIC Detec-
we have Gk,k = IN ×N for 1 ≤ k ≤ K. Meanwhile, the noise tion): For SIC detection, the conditional mutual information
T
vector ηk is given by ηk = [ηk [0] , ηk [1] , ..., ηk [N − 1]] , Ih,τ (yk ; xk |x1 , . . . , xk−1 ) is given by
and it can be shown that E {ηk [m] ηk∗ [n]} = N0 for 1 ≤ k ≤
K and 0 ≤ n, m ≤ N − 1. Ih,τ (yk ; xk |x1 , . . . , xk−1 )

2
1 |hk | Es [k]
= log2 det IN ×N + Pl,k , (9)
III. ACHIEVABLE R ATE A NALYSIS 2 N0
In this section, we focus on the asymptotic instantaneous where
achievable rate of each user. For the ease of derivation, we ⎛ ⎞−1
assume that the elements in the transmitted symbol vector xk 
K
2
are independent and identically distributed Gaussian variables ⎜ |hl | Es [l] Gl,k GT
l,k ⎟
Δ ⎜ l=k+1 ⎟
with average symbol energy Es [k], for 1 ≤ k ≤ K. In order Pl,k = ⎜IN ×N + ⎟ . (10)
⎝ N0 ⎠
to derive the achievable rate, we will first provide several
lemmas and theorems serving as important building blocks
for the analysis. Proof sketch: The lemma follows the translation invariance
Without loss of generality, let us assume that the channel of the differential entropy [9]. Due to the space limitation the
coefficients are sorted in the descending order, i.e., |h1 |2 ≥ detailed proofs are omitted here and we refer to the interested
|h2 |2 ≥ ... ≥ |hK |2 . Conventionally, SIC detection is usu- readers to our journal paper. 
ally applied at the BS for general NOMA systems. For the It can be observed from Lemma 1 that due
data detection of the k-th user, the IUI introduced by users to the link delay of each user, the corresponding
1, 2, . . . , k − 1 is cancelled in the aNOMA system. Therefore, interference term in the aNOMA systems for the
the asymptotic instantaneous achievable rate for the k-th user k-th user is
K 2 T
l=k+1 |hl | Es [l] Gl,k Gl,k instead of
under SIC detection is defined as K 2
l=k+1 |h l | E s [l] I N ×N in the conventional synchronized
Δ 1 NOMA systems. With the help of Lemma 1, the asymptotic
RkSIC = lim Ih,τ (yk ; xk |x1 , . . . , xk−1 )
N →∞ N instantaneous achievable rate RkSIC can be obtained by
bits per channel use. (8) invoking Szegö’s Theorem [8], [10]. To apply Szegö’s
Theorem, we first need to verify that Pl,k is a positive
The closed-form expression of Ih,τ (yk ; xk |x1 , . . . , xk−1 ) is definite Toeplitz matrix in the asymptotic regime, i.e.,
given in the following lemma. N → ∞, for any 1 ≤ l, k ≤ K. Due to the space limitation,

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we omit the proof here but this argument can be proved based
on Gram’s criterion [11] and Riemann-Lebesgue Lemma [12].
Next, we apply Szegö’s Theorem to (8). The application of
Szegö’s Theorem requires the derivation of the corresponding
inverse Fourier series. It can be shown that in the asymptotic
regime, the coefficients {tl,k [n]} of the asymptotical Toeplitz
Δ
matrix Tl,k = Gl,k GT l,k are given by
∞

tl,k [n] = g [m, τ [l] − τ [k]] g [m − n, τ [l] − τ [k]].
m=−∞
(11)
We note that the derivation of inverse Fourier series with
respect to (11) depends on the difference between link de-
lays of each user. However, the link delays’ difference may
randomly vary with respect to various channel conditions,
which is generally intractable. As an alternative, we apply
bounding techniques for the inverse Fourier series to facilitate
the achievable rate analysis. In particular, the bounds of inverse Fig. 2. Shape of the function H̄p (f ).
Fourier series depend on the corresponding spectrum of the
shaping pulse. In comparison to the spectrum of the RRC
pulse with a roll-off factor β, let us consider the spectrum [13]–[17]. The folded-spectrum indicates that the frequency
2 2 1 1
of the sinc pulse |Hsinc (f )| , i.e., |Hp (f )| with β = 0, and components outside the interval − 2T , 2T are “folded-in” the
a function H̄p (f ), which is given by interval to form an equivalent frequency domain representation
⎧   of the transmitted signal [18]. With Lemma 2, the inverse
⎪
⎪
2
|Hp (f )| , f ∈ − 1−β , 1−β ,
⎪
⎨ 2T 2T   Fourier series of with respect to (11) can be upper- and lower-
   2
H̄p (f ) = |Hp (f )| − Hp f − T1  , f ∈ 1−β
2 1+β
, , bounded for our analysis as shown in Theorem 1.
⎪
⎪   2  2T 2T 
⎪
⎩|Hp (f )| − Hp f +
2 1  , f∈ − 1+β 1−β Theorem 1 (Inverse Fourier Series of IUI Coefficients):
T 2T , − 2T .
Given the set of IUI coefficients tl,k [n] of the form (11) and
(12) an arbitrary link delay difference Δτ = τ [l]−τ [k], the inverse
For example, we plot the function H̄p (f ) with β = 0.5 in Fourier series
Fig. 2, where the shape of function H̄p(f ) is limited within the ∞ ∞
 
frequency interval f ∈ − 1+β 1+β
2T , 2T . Particularly, it can be t̃l,k (2πf T ) = g [n, Δτ ] g [n − m, Δτ ]e−j2πmT f ,
2 2 n=−∞ m=−∞
shown that H̄p (f ) = |Hp (f )| = |Hsinc (f )| , when β = 0. (14)
In the following lemma, we show that inverse Fourier series are upper- and lower-bounded by
2
corresponding to |Hp (f )| can be properly bounded according
2
to |Hsinc (f )| and H̄p (f ). 1  2 1
H̄p (f ) ≤ t̃l,k (2πf T ) ≤ 2 |Hsinc (f )| .
4
Lemma 2 (Folded-spectrum and Bounds): Given an RRC 2
(15)
2
T T
 1 1 |Hp (f )| and the frequency inter-
pulse with spectrum
val f ∈ − 2T , 2T , the infinite series of the form Proof sketch: The theorem can be derived based on the
∞ 
   Poisson summation formula and interchanging the order of
Hp f − k 2 e−j2παk can be upper-bounded and
k=−∞
T the integral and the summation. 
lower-bounded as Then, the application of Szegö’s Theorem to (8) is straight-
∞
  !2
 
Hp f − k  e−j2παk ≤ |Hsinc (f )|2 ,
forward thanks to Theorem 1. The corresponding results are
H̄p (f ) ≤  T  summarized in the next theorem.
k=−∞
(13) Theorem 2 (Bounds on the Achievable Rate): The asymp-
where α is an arbitrary constant number. Furthermore, the totic instantaneous achievable rate for the k-th user RkSIC under
SIC detection is upper-bounded by
lower-bound becomes exact if  p (t)
1
is strictly bandlimited in
1
the frequency interval f ∈ − 2T , 2T , i.e., the sinc pulse,
while the upper-bound becomes exact in the case of sinc pulse RkSIC
⎛ ⎞
or α = 0.
 1 ⎜ 2 ⎟
Proof : The proof is given in Appendix A. T 2T
⎜ |hk | Es [k] ⎟
As a remark to Lemma 2, we point out that the series of the ≤ log2 ⎜1 + ⎟df
∞    2 1 ⎝ 
K  2 ⎠
 Hp f − k 2 is commonly known as the folded-
− 2T
N0 + |hl | Es [l] T12 H̄p (f )
2 
form T l=k+1
k=−∞
spectrum in the literature of faster-than-Nyquist signaling bits per channel use, (16)

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and lower-bounded by is consistent from the observations in Fig. 1. However,

⎛ ⎞ for the sinc pulse, i.e., β = 0, the aNOMA system
⎜ 2 ⎟ does not provide any improvement in terms of achievable
1 ⎜ |hk | Es [k] ⎟
RkSIC ≥ log2 ⎜1 + ⎟ rates compared to the conventional asynchronized NOMA
2 ⎝ 
K
2 ⎠ system, as the upper-bound RkU becomes exactly the same
N0 + |hl | Es [l]
l=k+1 as the lower-bound RkL . This observation indicates that
bits per channel use. (17) compared to conventional synchronized NOMA systems,
the aNOMA system has lesser multiuser interference
Proof : The proof is given in Appendix B. caused by the different link delays and offers the potential
Based on Theorem 2, the normalized achievable rate bounds of achieving higher achievable rates. On the other hand,
can be easily calculated as shown in the following corollary. compared with conventional OMA systems, aNOMA
Corollary 1 (Normalized Achievable Rate Bounds): The systems allow multiple users to transmit their information
normalized achievable rate RkSIC is upper-bounded by over almost the same time-frequency resources at a cost
RkU of manageable multiuser interference.
⎛ ⎞ • The instantaneous achievable rate region of the aNOMA

 system is directly connected to the spectrum of the

1 ⎜ 2
|hk | Es [k] ⎟
Δ 2T
⎜ ⎟ shaping pulse. In particular, the region enlarges with the
= log2 ⎜1 + ⎟df
⎝ 
K  2 ⎠ increases of β, as the corresponding shaping pulse spec-
1
− 2T
N0 + |hl | Es [l] T12 H̄p (f )
2  1 1

l=k+1
trum has less energy in the frequency interval − 2T , 2T .
SIC
bits per second, (18) Now let us focus on the achievable sum rate RSUM of the
aNOMA system. Based on Corollary 1, we can obtain the
and lower-bounded by following corollary.
RkL Corollary 2 (Normalized Achievable Sum Rate Bounds):
⎛ ⎞ SIC
The normalized achievable sum rate RSUM is upper-bounded
by
⎜ 2
|hk | Es [k] ⎟
Δ 1 ⎜ ⎟
= log2 ⎜1 + ⎟ bits per second. U
RSUM
T ⎝ 
K
2 ⎠ ⎛ ⎞
N0 + |hl | Es [l]
l=k+1  1 K
 ⎜ 2 ⎟
(19) Δ 2T
⎜ |hk | Es [k] ⎟
= log2 ⎜1 + ⎟df
1 ⎝ 
K  2 ⎠
|hl | Es [l] T12 H̄p (f ) 
− 2T 2
Proof : The corollary comes naturally from Theorem 2 k=1 N0 +
by considering the symbol rate of each user, which is 1/T l=k+1
samples per second, and the signaling dimensions, which is 2 bits per second, (20)
for complex Gaussian distributed symbols. 
According to Corollary 1, some interesting observations and and lower-bounded by
⎛ ⎞
insights can be revealed. 
K
2
⎜ |hk | Es [k] ⎟
• Recalling Lemma 2, we observe that both the upper- Δ 1 ⎜ ⎟
L k=1
bound and the lower-bound in Corollary 1 are achievable. RSUM = log2 ⎜1 + ⎟ bits per second.
T ⎝ N0 ⎠
Theoretically, the upper-bound RkU can be achieved if the
shaping pulse’s roll-off factor β = 0, i.e., the sinc pulse,
(21)
while the lower-bound RkL can be achieved if all the users
share the same link delay, i.e., the conventional synchro- Proof : The corollary can be straightforwardly derived from
nized NOMA system, and the corresponding achievable Corollary 1. 
rate lower-bound is essentially the achievable rate for As expected, we observe that the instantaneous sum rate of
conventional synchronized NOMA systems. aNOMA systems is lower-bounded by that of the conventional
• With practical RRC pulses, i.e., β = 0, the asynchroniza- synchronized NOMA system. Similar to the previous corollary,
tion leads to a greater achievable rate region compared this is due to the less severe multiuser interference caused by
to that of the conventional NOMA systems. Moreover, the different link delays. In the next section, we will verify
the upper-bound RkU indicates that the potential data rate our analysis by means of numerical simulations.
improvement of aNOMA systems is due to less multiuser
interference energy, which is the result of different link IV. N UMERICAL R ESULTS
delays. An intuitive explanation of this observation is that Without loss of generality, we consider the baseband trans-
the aNOMA system naturally avoids the fully superposi- mission for simulation, where we set the Nyquist symbol time
tion of transmitted symbols from different users due to the as T = 1 second. We provide the simulation results for both
diverse link delays such that it is unlikely to acquire the the normalized instantaneous achievable rates and the sum
peak interference energy at each sampling index, which rate for the aNOMA system and compare the results with

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aNOMA, R USUM, = 0.3

aNOMA, R LSUM, = 0.3

SIC
aNOMA, R SUM, = 0.3

aNOMA, R SIC
SUM
, =0

NOMA, R SIC
SUM
, = 0.3
58
N SIC
OMA, R , = 0.3
SUM

D120$

5/
N

20$

Fig. 3. The achievable rate region of NOMA and aNOMA with one BS
and two users. Both users have the same unit transmitted symbol energy and
|h1 |2 Es [1] |h |2 E [2]
N0
= 2N s = 10 dB. The transmitter shaping pulse is the
0
RRC pulse with β = 0.3.
the theoretical bounds derived in Corollary 1 and Corollary 2,
where the number of transmitted symbols for each user is set as
N = 500. In particular, with a given channel coefficient hk for
each user, we adopt the Monte Carlo method to eliminate the
effect of link delays. With a sufficient number of Monte Carlo
realizations, we obtain the average achievable rates according
to (9), where the link delay for each user is randomly generated
with a uniform distribution between the interval [0, 2T ] in each
Monte Carlo realization.
Fig. 3 depicts the normalized instantaneous achievable rate
region of NOMA and aNOMA systems, where one BS and
two users are considered. In specific, we consider the case
where both users have the same unit transmitted symbol energy
2 2
and we set |h1 |NE0 s [1] = |h2 |NE0 s [2] = 10 dB. The transmitter
shaping pulse is the RRC pulse with β = 0.3. We notice
that the achievable rate based on the Monte Carlo simulation
is perfectly bounded by the derived bounds. Furthermore,
as the lower-bound is essentially the achievable rate for the
conventional NOMA system, we can see that the aNOMA
system is superior to the conventional NOMA system, in terms
of the achievable rates. This observation is consistent with our
derivation in Corollary 1.
Fig. 4 depicts the normalized instantaneous achievable sum
rate performance of aNOMA, NOMA, and OMA, where one
BS and K = 4 users are considered. In specific, we assume
that all the users have the same unit transmitted symbol energy
2 2 2
and channel condition, i.e., |h1 | = |h2 | = · · · = |h4 | = 1.
Without loss of generality, we define the receiver " signal-to-
Δ 
K
2
noise ratio (SNR) as SNR = |hk | Es [k] N0 . In order to
k=1
have a comprehensive understanding, we set the shaping pulse
as the RRC pulse with β = 0 and β = 0.3, respectively. As
can be observed from the figure, the normalized achievable
Fig. 4. The achievable sum rate region of aNOMA, NOMA, and OMA with
one BS and K = 4 users, where |h1 |2 = |h2 |2 = · · · = |h4 |2 = 1.
sum rate performance for the aNOMA system with β = 0.3
is again clearly bounded by the derived bounds. Furthermore,
for the aNOMA system with β = 0, the sum rate performance
based on the Monte Carlo simulation aligns perfectly with that
of the lower-bound of the aNOMA system. These observations
substantiate our derivation in Corollary 2. On the other hand,
for the sum rate at around 3 bits/s, the aNOMA system shows
an around 10.7 dB SNR gain compared to that of the OMA
systems. Moreover, for the sum rate at around 6 bits/s, the
aNOMA system shows around 0.7 dB SNR gain compared
to that of the conventional synchronized NOMA system.
These observations clearly demonstrates the superiority of the
aNOMA system over the conventional schemes.
V. C ONCLUSION
In this paper, we investigated the achievable rate of uplink
aNOMA systems. We derived both the upper-bound and the
lower-bound of the achievable rates by invoking Szegö’s
Theorem. In particular, we provided important insights for
aNOMA systems based on the derived bounds. Simulation
results agreed with our analysis and demonstrated consider-
able achievable rate gains of aNOMA systems compared to
conventional synchronized NOMA and OMA systems. Our
future work will focus on the outage performance analysis
of aNOMA systems and neural network assisted detection
algorithms [19] for aNOMA systems.
A PPENDIX A
P ROOF OF L EMMA 2
As we know that the spectrum of RRC pulse is strictly non-
negative, it is obvious that
∞  !2 ∞  !2
     
Hp f − k  e−j2παk ≤  Hp f − k  .
 T   T 
k=−∞ k=−∞
(22)

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Therefore, according to the property of RRC pulses, we On the other hand, (24) can be upper-bounded according to
∞ 
  
have Hp f − k 2 = |Hsinc (f )|2 . Furthermore, it is Theorem 1 by
T
k=−∞
obvious that (22) becomes exact if α = 0. RkSIC
2
⎛ ⎞
On the other hand, we know that |Hp (f)| is strictly   1 ⎜ 2 ⎟
bandlimited within the frequency interval f ∈ − 1+β , 1+β T 2T
⎜ |hk | Es [k] ⎟
 1 1  2T 2T . ≤ log2 ⎜1 + ⎟df
Therefore, for f ∈ − 2T , 2T , we have 2 1 ⎝ 
K  2 ⎠
|hl | Es [l] T12 H̄p (f ) 
− 2T 2
N0 +
l=k+1
∞  !2
  bits per channel use. (26)
Hp f − k  e−j2παk
 T 
k=−∞ This completes the proof of Theorem 2.
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