NOMA-Based Scalable Video Multicast in Mobile Networks with Statistical Channels

To cope with rapid growth of video services, we propose a non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) based scalable video multicast (NOMA-SVM) framework for mobile networks, by exploiting NOMA's specific potential in scalable video multicast transmission. We consider statistical channels, instead of channels with perfect estimation, in the proposed NOMA-SVM framework in order to capture the realistic channel behaviors. As quality of experience (QoE) is a better metric than throughput for video transmission, QoE-driven power allocation is performed among multiple video layers in the proposed NOMA-SVM framework, in which users can decode video with quality proportional to their channel conditions. Specifically, we formulate the power allocation problem with the goal to maximize the average QoE over all users while guaranteeing the basic services of these users. To solve such a non-convex discrete problem, an optimal algorithm is developed based on the hidden monotonicity of the problem. A suboptimal algorithm is also proposed with much lower complexity in order to meet the practical needs. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithms outperform existing orthogonal multiple access (OMA) and NOMA based algorithms under various multicast scenarios in terms of QoE.