Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface Assisted Non‐Terrestrial NOMA Networks

Abstract

This paper considers the application of reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) to non‐terrestrial non‐orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) networks. More specifically, the performance of a pair of non‐orthogonal users for RIS assisted non‐terrestrial NOMA networks is investigated over large‐scale fading and Nakagami‐ m fading cascaded channel. The exact and asymptotic expressions of outage probability are derived for the nearby user and distant user with the imperfect successive interference cancellation (SIC) and perfect SIC schemes. Based on the approximated results, the diversity orders of these two users are obtained in the high signal‐to‐noise ratios. The simulation results are used to verify the theoretical derivations and find that: 1) The outage behaviors of RIS assisted non‐terrestrial NOMA networks outperforms than that of orthogonal multiple access; 2) By increasing the number of reflecting elements of RIS and Nagakami‐ m fading factors m ′ and Ω , RIS‐assisted non‐terrestrial NOMA networks are able to achieve the enhanced outage performance.