Study on the Application of NOMA Techniques forHeterogeneous Satellite Terminals

This paper addresses the application of nonorthogonal multiple-access techniques (NOMA) to those satellite relayed communications for which a significant imbalance in the link quality of user terminals can be expected. The Signal-to-Interference and Noise Ratio (SINR) imbalance could be caused by the coexistence of different types of terminals, possibly with different antenna sizes, and offering different classes of service. This link SINR asymmetry can be exploited to outperform orthogonal access schemes under different rate metrics, paying special attention to fairness in the service provision. Both forward and asynchronous return link are addressed, with minimum signaling information and emphasis on some relevant implementation issues such as framing and synchronization.Grant numbers : TERESA - Hybrid TERrEstrial/Satellite Air Interface for 5G and Beyond (TEC2017-90093-C3-1-R) and Satnex 2020- WI 4.2 - WI-Satnex 2019: NOMA Techniques for Satellite (01 May 2019 - 01 May 2020) projects.© 2020 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works