Super-Modular Game-Based User Scheduling and Power Allocation for Energy-Efficient NOMA Network

In this paper, we consider a single cell downlink non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) network and aim at maximizing the energy efficiency. The energy-efficient resource allocation problem is formulated as a non-convex and NP-hard problem. To decrease the computation complexity, we decouple the optimization problem as a subchannel matching scheme and power allocation subproblems. In the subchannel matching scheme, a non-cooperative game is applied to model this problem. To discuss the existence of Nash equilibrium (NE), we introduce a super-modular game and then design an algorithm to converge to the NE point. Moreover, a greed subchannel matching algorithm with low complexity is given through a two-way choice between users and subchannels. However, for given subchannel matching scheme, power allocation is still a non-convex problem, which is difficult to get the optimal solution. We then transform the non-convex problem to a convex problem by applying a successive convex approximation method. Afterward, we provide an algorithm to converge to suboptimal solution by solving a convex problem iteratively. Finally, simulation result demonstrates that the energy efficiency performance of the NOMA system is better than the orthogonal frequency division multiple access system.