Backscatter Assisted Wireless Powered Communication Networks with Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access

Abstract

This letter considers a backscatter assisted wireless powered communication network (BAWPCN) with non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA). This model consists of a hybrid access point (HAP) and multiple users which can work in either backscatter or harvest-then-transmit (HTT) protocol. To fully exploit time for information transmission, the users working in the backscatter protocol are scheduled to reflect modulated signals during the first phase of the HTT protocol which is dedicated for energy transfer. During the second phase, all users working in the HTT protocol transmit information to the HAP simultaneously since NOMA is adopted. Considering both short-term and long-term optimization problems to maximize the system throughput, the optimal resource allocation policies are obtained. Simulation results show that the proposed model can significantly improve the system performance.