On the achievable max-min rates of cooperative power-domain NOMA systems

The non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) schemes, where the users are allowed to share the same time-frequency resource, have recently received a major interest to meet the increasing demands for higher data rates, improved user fairness, and/or lower latency applications in future dense-user wireless networks. Moreover, the achievable user rates of NOMA schemes can be further increased through the integration of these multiple access schemes with other enabling schemes such as full-duplex user cooperative communications. In this paper, the optimization of the achievable max-min rates for full-duplex cooperative NOMA (CNOMA) schemes for the two-user scenario are re-visited and is extended to the three-user scenario where novel expressions for the optimal user cooperation power are derived for both scenarios. The obtained results shed new lights on the optimal transmit power allocation and the optimal user cooperation power allocation in CNOMA systems and the different design trade-offs in such systems.