A Case Study:Spectrum Efficient Multiple Access Techniques for 5G Networks

The evolution of mobile networks shows that there is a need for improvement in spectrum efficiency. Beyond spectrum efficiency, 5G networks must have massive connectivity and low latency. The role of multiple access techniques is important to provide spectrum efficiency and QoS. The existing orthogonal multiple access techniques do not satisfy the spectrum efficiency requirements for 5G. NOMA is a spectrum-efficient MAC protocol that provides solutions for 5G networks. In this paper, we have compared and analyzed existing multiple access techniques with promising multiple access NOMA for 5G networks. The evaluation shows that we cannot replace OMA with NOMA. A single MAC protocol will not fulfil the requirements of 5G networks. We proposed a hybrid MAC protocol for 5G that adaptively selects the MAC protocol as per channel characteristics. Our proposed software-defined multiple access techniques will adaptively conFigure different multiple access schemes according to the requirements of different applications and services in 5G.