NOMA Meets Finite Resolution Analog Beamforming in Massive MIMO and Millimeter-Wave Networks

Finite resolution analog beamforming (FRAB) has been recognized as an effective approach to reduce hardware costs in massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and millimeter-wave networks. However, the use of FRAB means that the beamformers are not perfectly aligned with the users’ channels and multiple users may be assigned similar or even identifical beamformers. This letter shows how non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) can be used to exploit this feature of FRAB, where a single FRAB based beamformer is shared by multiple users. Both analytical and simulation results are provided to demonstrate the excellent performance achieved by this new NOMA transmission scheme.