System-Level Throughput of Non-Orthogonal Access with SIC in Cellular Downlink When Channel Estimation Error Exists

We investigate the influence of channel estimation error on the achievable system-level throughput performance of non-orthogonal access with successive interference cancellation (SIC) in the cellular downlink. The channel estimation error in non-orthogonal access causes residual interference in the SIC process, which decreases the achievable user throughput. Furthermore, the channel estimation error causes error in the transmission rate control for the respective users, which may result in decoding error at not only the destination user terminal but also other user terminals for SIC. However, we show that by using a simple transmission rate back-off algorithm, the impact of the channel estimation error is effectively alleviated and non-orthogonal access with SIC achieves clear average and cell-edge user throughput gains relative to orthogonal access similar to the case with perfect channel estimation.