Rate-Splitting Multiple Access in Wireless Communication Systems
Summary
Rate-Splitting Multiple Access (RSMA) is an advanced transmission paradigm for contemporary and future wireless networks, offering a flexible mechanism to manage interference and enhance spectral efficiency. By dividing user messages into common and private streams, RSMA enables partial decoding of interference and partial treatment of residual interference as noise. This hybrid interference management strategy unites and generalises the extremes of Space-Division Multiple Access (SDMA), which fully treats interference as noise, and Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA), which seeks to fully decode interference via successive interference cancellation (SIC). RSMA’s capacity to softly bridge these approaches grants smooth adaptation across varied network loads, antenna configurations and channel state information qualities. As such, it delivers notable gains in throughput, reliability and user fairness while reducing receiver complexity compared with traditional SDMA and NOMA schemes. RSMA is thus positioned as a compelling enabler for fifth-generation (5G), beyond-5G and envisioned sixth-generation (6G) systems, meeting the demands of massive connectivity, diverse quality-of-service requirements and energy-efficient operation.
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Rate-Splitting Multiple Access in Wireless Communication Systems publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in rate-splitting multiple access in wireless communication systems across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Rate-Splitting Multiple Access (RSMA): A non-orthogonal multiple access strategy in which each user message is split into common and private parts to enable partial interference decoding and partial interference suppression.
Space-Division Multiple Access (SDMA): A linear precoding method that separates users spatially and treats all residual inter-user interference as noise.
Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA): A power-domain multiplexing technique that superposes user signals with successive interference cancellation to decode interfering signals fully.
Successive Interference Cancellation (SIC): A receiver process that decodes and subtracts stronger signals in sequence so as to recover weaker ones.
Common Stream: In RSMA, the portion of the transmitted signal decoded by multiple users to facilitate interference management and ensure fairness.
Private Stream: In RSMA, the portion of the transmitted signal intended for and decoded by a single specific user.
References
- Rate-splitting multiple access for downlink communication systems: bridging, generalizing, and outperforming SDMA and NOMA. EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking (2018).
- Is NOMA Efficient in Multi-Antenna Networks? A Critical Look at Next Generation Multiple Access Techniques. IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society (2021).
- Data-Oriented Downlink RSMA Systems. IEEE Communications Letters (2023).
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