Throughput of a wireless cell using superposition based multiple-access with optimized scheduling

This paper studies the performance of a superposition based approach for multi-user access in the uplink of a wireless cell. The approach uses non-orthogonal signaling and multi-user detection on top of an orthogonal multiple-access method like OFDMA. Path losses depending on the distance between a terminal and the base station and cancellation errors during multi-user detection are taken into account. An optimized scheduling method is proposed and used for the capacity based throughput study. From the results recommendations for practical scheduling are derived. As a result, significant average throughput enhancements as well as improved cell-edge user throughput can be achieved compared to orthogonal multi-user access without increasing the number of antennas. The method can be realized as an extension of existing wireless standards like 3GPP LTE/LTE-Advanced or IEEE 802.16e/m / WiMAX.