Fairness Comparison of Uplink NOMA and OMA

Abstract: In this paper, we compare the resource allocation fairness of uplink communications between non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) schemes and orthogonal multiple access (OMA) schemes. Through characterizing the contribution of the individual user data rate to the system sum rate, we analyze the fundamental reasons that NOMA offers a more fair resource allocation than that of OMA in asymmetric channels. Furthermore, a fairness indicator metric based on Jain's index is proposed to measure the asymmetry of multiuser channels. More importantly, the proposed metric provides a selection criterion for choosing between NOMA and OMA for fair resource allocation. Based on this discussion, we propose a hybrid NOMA-OMA scheme to further enhance the users fairness. Simulation results confirm the accuracy of the proposed metric and demonstrate the fairness enhancement of the proposed hybrid NOMA-OMA scheme compared to the conventional OMA and NOMA schemes.