Efficient Resource Allocation and User Association in NOMA-Enabled Vehicular-Aided HetNets with High Altitude Platforms

The increasing demand for massive connectivity and high data rates has made the efficient use of existing spectrum resources an increasingly challenging problem. Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is a potential solution for future heterogeneous networks (HetNets) due to its high capacity and spectrum efficiency. In this study, we analyze an uplink NOMA-enabled vehicular-aided HetNet, where multiple vehicular user equipment (VUEs) share the access link spectrum, and a high-altitude platform (HAP) communicates with roadside units (RSUs) through a backhaul communication link. We propose an improved algorithm for user association that selects VUEs for HAPs based on channel coefficient ratios and terrestrial VUEs based on a caching-state backhaul communication link. The joint optimization problems aim to maximize a utility function that considers VUE transmission rates and cross-tier interference while meeting the constraints of backhaul transmission rates and QoS requirements of each VUE. The joint resource allocation optimization problem consists of three sub-problems: bandwidth allocation, user association, and transmission power allocation. We derive a closed-form solution for bandwidth allocation and solve the transmission power allocation sub-problem iteratively using Taylor expansion to transform a non-convex term into a convex one. Our proposed three-stage iterative algorithm for resource allocation integrates all three sub-problems and is shown to be effective through simulation results. Specifically, the results demonstrate that our solution achieves performance improvements over existing approaches.