Resource Allocation in 5G with NOMA-Based Mixed Numerology Systems

New radio (NR) and non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) have emerged for more scalable and efficient resource utilization in 5G. NR implements mixed numerology with a flexible radio frame structure to ensure forward compatibility for future services, whereas NOMA allows multiple users with different channel states to share identical radio resources. However, the resource allocation in the NOMA-based mixed numerology system is challenging due to the naturally different shapes of Physical Resource Block (PRB) for NR and the reused locations of PRBs in a radio frame for NOMA. In this paper, we formulate a new optimization problem Multi-Dimensional Resource Allocation Problem (MDRAP) and prove that MDRAP is NP-hard. To solve the problem, we propose an approximation algorithm to maximize the weighted sum rate under the heterogeneity of users. The algorithm includes Zone Displacement to displace the locations of allocated PRBs in different layers of the radio frame, and Zone Allocation to change the location of the bounded rectangles (i.e., zones) for the allocation in each layer. We design Layer Dissimilarity to examine the location and shape of PRBs for avoiding inter-numerology interference between different layers. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms state-of-the-art algorithms regarding throughput and fairness.