Special Collection Article

International Journal of Distributed

Sensor Networks
2018, Vol. 14(5)
Joint time and power allocation for Ó The Author(s) 2018
DOI: 10.1177/1550147718778215
uplink cooperative non-orthogonal journals.sagepub.com/home/dsn

multiple access based massive

machine-type communication
Network

Shujun Han , Xiaodong Xu, Litong Zhao and Xiaofeng Tao

Abstract
Non-orthogonal multiple access is an essential promising solution to support large-scale connectivity required by mas-
sive machine-type communication scenario defined in the fifth generation (5G) mobile communication system. In this
article, we study the problem of energy minimization in non-orthogonal multiple access–based massive machine-type
communication network. Focusing on the massive machine-type communication scenario and assisted by grouping
method, we propose an uplink cooperative non-orthogonal multiple access scheme with two phases, transmission phase
and cooperation phase, for one uplink cooperative transmission period. Based on uplink cooperative non-orthogonal
multiple access, the machine-type communication device with better channel condition and more residual energy will be
selected as a group head, which acts as a relay assisting other machine-type communication devices to communicate. In
the transmission phase, machine-type communication devices transmit data to the group head. Then, the group head
transmits the received data with its own data to base station in the cooperation phase. Because the massive machine-
type communication devices are low-cost dominant with limited battery, based on uplink cooperative non-orthogonal
multiple access, we propose a joint time and power allocation algorithm to minimize the system energy consumption.
Furthermore, the proposed joint time and power allocation algorithm includes dynamic group head selection and frac-
tional transmit time allocation algorithms. Simulation results show that the proposed solution for uplink cooperative
non-orthogonal multiple access–based massive machine-type communication network outperforms other schemes.

Keywords
Massive machine-type communication, non-orthogonal multiple access, uplink cooperative non-orthogonal multiple
access, joint time and power allocation, energy minimization

Date received: 22 July 2017; accepted: 29 April 2018

Handling Editor: Wei Ni

Introduction
The deployment scenarios of the fifth generation (5G)
system are grouped into three general categories:
enhanced mobile broadband, ultra-reliable and low
latency communications, and massive machine-type
communications (mMTC). Among these three scenar-
ios, machine-type communication (MTC) is known as
machine to machine (M2M) communication, which is a
National Engineering Laboratory for Mobile Network Technologies,
Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing, China
Corresponding author:
Xiaodong Xu, National Engineering Laboratory for Mobile Network
Technologies, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, No.
10, Xitucheng Road, Haidian District 100876, Beijing, China.
Email: xuxiaodong@bupt.edu.cn

Creative Commons CC BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
(http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without
further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/
open-access-at-sage).
2 International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks
form of data communication among several connected
entities and does not necessarily need human interac-
tion.1 With the ever-increasing amount of connected
devices and Internet of things (IoT) applications, the
new services supported by MTC will sprout and pro-
mote the development of future 5G networks. However,
there are challenges in enabling mMTC in 5G era.
Different from assumptions in current cellular net-
works for the conventional human-type communication
(HTC) services, mMTC mainly focuses on uplink com-
munications.2 As machine-type communication devices
(MTCDs) usually have small packets, low data rates,
low cost and battery constrained, limited resources will
become more precious when massive MTCDs access
the network. Moreover, since current mobile networks
are optimized to serve HTC, the optimizations may dis-
satisfy MTCDs’ requirement. There are several require-
ments and key performance indicators of mMTC
should to be considered: coverage enhancements of
20 dB, 10 years device battery life, low device complex-
ity and a few million devices per square kilometer.3,4
To solve the aforementioned challenges, assisted by
grouping, we propose an uplink cooperative non-
orthogonal multiple access (UC-NOMA) scheme
including transmission phase and cooperation phase for
one uplink cooperative transmission period. Moreover,
based on UC-NOMA, we propose a joint time and
power allocation (JTPA) algorithm to minimize the sys-
tem energy consumption, including dynamic group
head selection and fractional transmit time allocation
algorithms. The main contributions of this article are
summarized as follows:
1. Exploiting the characteristic of NOMA tech-
nique that multiple MTCDs share the same sub-
carrier at the same time with different power
levels, we propose an UC-NOMA scheme for
mMTC networks. Furthermore, we characterize
the total energy consumption of UC-NOMA–
based mMTC networks, with transmission time
and power allocation being taken into
consideration.
2. The proposed UC-NOMA is based on a group-
ing method, where the distinctive channel gains
of MTCDs are exploited. The MCTD with bet-
ter channel condition and more residual energy
will be selected as group head, which receives
the data from member of MTCDs in the trans-
mission phase and transmits the received data
with its own data to base station (BS) in the
cooperation phase.
3. Based on UC-NOMA, we propose the JTPA
algorithm to minimize the energy consumption
and prolong the lifetime of massive MTCDs.
The dynamic group head selection and frac-
tional transmission time allocation schemes are
designed. The dynamic group head selection
scheme enables the MTCDs with more residual
energy and closer to BS to be the group head,
and the fractional transmission time allocation
scheme balances the transmission time allocated
to each group.
The remainder of the article is organized as follows.
The ‘‘Related works’’ section presents the review of the
related works. The system model based uplink NOMA
is described in section ‘‘System model.’’ The proposed
dynamic group head selection and fractional transmis-
sion time allocation scheme are introduced in section
‘‘Joint Time and Power Allocation in UC-NOMA.’’
Section ‘‘Performance evaluations’’ provides the perfor-
mance simulation results and section ‘‘Conclusion’’ con-
cludes the article.
Related works
Instead of communicating with BS directly, MTCDs can
associate with equipment functionally similar to relay
and perform uplink multi-hop communication. Via
uplink multi-hop communication in mMTC, not only
intense competition against radio resources can be alle-
viated but also the energy consumptions of MTCDs with
poor channel conditions can be reduced. The authors
propose that the MTCDs first establish a link with
machine-type communication gateway (MTCG), and
then the MTCG communicates to BS with received
data.5 Furthermore, considering that user equipment
(UE) have more power and storage space than MTCDs,
UE are configured as intermediate equipment.6,7 But,
the above schemes proposed are not appropriate for
some scenarios without intermediate equipment.
The massive MTCDs’ accessing in 5G networks is
one of the most challenges in mMTC networks. Some
researchers focus on random access,8 while other
researchers turn their attentions to NOMA instead of
orthogonal multiple access (OMA). Although NOMA
multiplexes multiple users in the same radio resource
with increased co-channel interferences (CCIs), NOMA
technology with employing power domain schedules
more MTCDs to share the limited available resources.9
In addition, compared with conventional OMA, NOMA
improves the overall system throughput and supports
lower transmission latency and less signaling cost.10
These attractive characteristics drive NOMA to be a
potential access technology for 5G system. And based on
NOMA, massive connectivity per coverage with limited
radio resources could be realized. Since massive MTCDs
directly communicating with BS costs much overheads,
grouping of MTCDs plays a key role in reducing the
complexity. By modeling the system as a cooperative
game in partition formation, two schemes are proposed
to divide the users in a hybrid NOMA system.11
Han et al. 3

In uplink NOMA system, the BS receives the multi-

plexed signals in power domain from different users
and applies the successive interference cancelation
(SIC) technology to decode each signal. The MTCD
with highest channel gain is likely the strongest signal at
the receiver and its signal will be decoded first. Then,
the MTCD signal with the second highest channel gain
is decoded and moving forward. Since NOMA systems
depend on efficient SIC, the intra-group interference
model needs to be adapted according to the level of SIC
cancelations.12 In particular, the use of SIC in NOMA
facilitates MTCDs with better channel conditions to
decode the messages of the other MTCDs, and further-
more, they also serve as relays to make the MTCDs Figure 1. System model of an uplink cooperative NOMA
with poor channel conditions access the cellular net- single-cell network.
works and reduce the energy consumption. To fully uti-
lize the prior information about other users’ messages
of the users with better channel conditions in downlink conditions locate around the center. To save the energy
consumption of MTCDs with adverse locations, the
NOMA systems, a cooperative NOMA transmission
MTCD with good channel condition plays a role of
scheme is proposed.13
Currently, most of researches focus on the downlink group head, which assists MTCDs with poor channel
NOMA scenarios, while NOMA can serve general conditions to communicate. Therefore, this system is
defined as UC-NOMA system.
uplink and downlink scenarios with more than two
In NOMA, multiple MTCDs are multiplexed into
users.14 The authors stand in different points to investi-
transmission power domain and scheduled for trans-
gate the downlink NOMA, for example, fairness,15,16
mission on the same spectrum resources non-orthogon-
energy-efficient,17,18 and sub-channel allocation.19 For
ally. In order to control the massive access and reduce
uplink NOMA, an enhanced proportional fair (PF)-
the complexities of SIC, an MTCD grouping method is
based scheduling scheme,20 a suboptimal algorithm with
applied. The distinctness channel gains of different
single-user water-filling performed over all available
MTCDs is one of the key issues considered in minimiz-
sub-channels21 and a power back-off scheme based on
ing CCI in a NOMA group. Moreover, to perform SIC
fractional transmission power control22 are proposed.
at BS, we need to maintain the distinctness of the
MTCDs with limited battery have to serve for quite
received signals. Thus, we divided the set of MTCDs
a long period, thus energy consumption becomes an
M into K different groups by exploiting the distinctive
urgent to be solved issue in mMTC networks. To save
channel gains. In the grouping method, first, the
energy or extend service lifetime, each MTCD indepen-
MTCDs are classified into Class 1 and Class 2 accord-
dently transmits its own signal with controlled trans-
ing to the channel gain. Second, according to the num-
mission power. Power and energy efficiency about
ber of MTCDs M and groups K, the number of
MTC are investigated in cellular networks and Long-
MTCDs in Class 1 is determined as
Term Evolution (LTE) networks.23,24 Based on tradi-
q = maxfK, M=2g. The MTCDs in Class 1 have much
tional OMA schemes, the problem of minimizing the
lower channel gains compared to MTCDs in Class 2.
power consumption to prolong MTCDs’ lifetime is
Then, the channel gain is sorted as h1 \h2 \   
studied.25 Furthermore, an uplink energy minimization
\hq \hq + 1 \hq + 2 \    \hM , and hm is the channel
problem to efficiently use the radio resources and sup-
gain from the mth MTCD to the destination.
port the mMTC is investigated for MTC with NOMA.7
Furthermore, to keep the distinctive channel gain in
one group, the MTCDs are also divided into different
groups as follows: the channel gain of group-k set as
System model
fhk , hK + k , h2K + k , . . . , hMK + k g.
Consider an uplink NOMA system consisting of M The group-k set is denoted as
MTCDs randomly distributed in the sectors, as shown Mk = f1, 2, . . . , mk g [ fhk g, where Mk represents the
in Figure 1. All MTCDs are equipped with a single group member set and hk represents the selected P group
K
antenna. The sector is denoted by S with radius DS . head, Mk  M, hk 2 M. Furthermore, k =1
Denote the set of MTCDs as M = f1, 2, . . . , Mg. (mk + 1) = M.
Without loss of generality, we assume that the MTCDs In one UC-NOMA transmission period, there are
with poor channel conditions locate closely to the edge two phases in time domain, transmission phase and
of the sector, while the MTCDs with better channel cooperation phase, as shown in Figure 2. In the
4 International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks

Hk = fhk, 1 \hk, 2 . . . \hk, mk g. During the transmission

time tk in UC-NOMA, each MTCD in group-k transmits
data to group head hk sharing the same bandwidth.
Because the effect of the error propagation on NOMA
performances caused by imperfect SIC is another chal-
lenge, in this article, we assume that perfect SIC is per-
formed at receivers to obtain the upper bound of available
Figure 2. One uplink cooperative NOMA transmission period.
data rate.27 Under the condition of perfect SIC assump-
tion, the MTCD with highest channel gain experiences
transmission phase, the transmission time allocated to
interference from all other MTCDs, while the MTCD
group-k is denoted as tk , during which MTCDs in
with lowest channel gain effectively enjoys interference-
group-k transmit their data to their group head hk ,
free transmission;8 thus, the achievable throughput of the
while the group head hk keeps silent and receives the
ith MTCD in group-k is given as follows7
data. Constrained by the energy of MTCDs, assume
that the received data are decoded by SIC at group 0 1
head with help of multi-access edge computing B C
B pk, i jhk, i j2 C
(MEC),26 which is running in the edge of network. Rk, i = Btk logB1 + i1 C ð3Þ
@ P  2 A
MEC server can obtain network data, such as BS ID,  
pk, j hk, j + s 2
available bandwidth, and information of the MTCDs’ j=1
location, which is used in SIC. Because we focus on the
uplink communication of MTCDs and the total energy where B is the bandwidth of the uplink NOMA system
consumption of all MTCDs, the downlink phase of for the whole group-k.
MEC information sent to the group heads and the pro- In the cooperation phase of UC-NOMA, during
cessing time of MEC server are out scope of this article transmission time tK + 1 , the group head hk transmits
and not illustrated in Figure 2. In the cooperation the received data and its own rhk bits payload to the BS
phase, the last transmission time tK + 1 is assigned to with power qk based on NOMA. The channel gain
each group head hk , k = 1, 2, . . . , K, which acts as from group head hk to BS is denoted as gk and the
relay and forwards the received data in the transmis- channel gains of group heads are sorted as
sion phase with its own data to the BS. The transmis- G = fg1 \g2 \    \gK g. Thus, the achievable through-
sion time of both two phases is constrained by T put of group head hk is given as follows
0 1
KX
+1
tk  T ð1Þ B qk jgk j2 C
B C
k =1 Rhk = BtK + 1 logB1 + k 1 C ð4Þ
@ P  2 2
A
q j gj + s
During the transmission phase of UC-NOMA for j=1
the group-k, MTCDs in group-k transmit their pay-
loads to group head hk , such as rk, i is the payload of ith Unlike traditional maximization of spectral effi-
MTCD in group-k. The received signals in group head ciency for HTC, due to the features of mMTC, new
hk are as follows
 principles are added to cellular networks. Consider that
X
mk the battery lifetime is important for massive MTCDs
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
yhk = pk, i sk, i hk, i + nk, i ð2Þ and the uplink data transmission consumes a large por-
i=1 tion of energy, we minimize energy consumption with a
given payload
where pk, i , sk, i , hk, i , and nk, i are the parameters of ith
MTCD in group-k. pk, i denotes the transmission power, P
K P
mk P
K
sk, i is the transmission signal with jsk, i j2 = 1, hk, i is the min tk pk;i + tK + 1 qk
p;q;t k=1 i = 1; i2Mk k =1
channel gain from itself to its group head hk , and nk, i
KP
+1
represents the additive Gaussian noise with (0, s2 ). s:t: tk  T ðCo:1Þ
k =1
0  pk;i  pmax;1 ðCo:2Þ ð5Þ
Joint Time and Power Allocation in 0  qk  qmax;2 ðCo:3Þ
UC-NOMA Rk;i  rk;i ; i 2 Mk ðCo:4Þ
P
mk
Problem formulation Rhk  rhk + Rk;i = rhk ðCo:5Þ
i = 1;i2Mk
In uplink NOMA, the receiver exploits the SIC technol-
ogy to decode the multiplexed signals in power domain. where p represents the transmission power of MTCDs
The channel gains of MTCDs in group-k are sorted as in the transmission phase, q denotes the transmission
Han et al. 5

P P
power of group heads in the cooperation phase, and t where ^rk, i = i1 rhk = lk1
j = 1 rk, j and ^ rhl .
=1 
is the transmission time. rk, i is the payload of MTCD i Thus, the original problem (5) can be converted as
in the group-k within time constraint tk and rhk is the minimizing the energy consumption subjected to trans-
payload of group head hk itself within time constraint mission time
tK + 1 . The total transmission time in the whole UC-
P
K P
mk  rk;i  ^rk;i
NOMA should be less than T as in (Co.1). Both (Co. 2) s2
min tk 2 2Btk  1 2Btk
and (Co.3) require that neither MTCDs’ nor group p, q, t k = 1 i¼1; i2Mk k;i j
j h
 rh  ^rh
heads’ transmission power is larger than their maxi- PK k k
s2
mum transmission power. To guarantee the data trans- + tK + 1 jgk j2
2 BtK + 1
 1 2BtK + 1 ð11Þ
k=1
mission successfully, the throughput of MTCDs and KP
+1
MTCGs should meet the requirements in both (Co.4) tk = T ðCo:1Þ
s:t: k=1
and (Co.5).
t k  tk  tK + 1 ðCo:2Þ
In mMTC scenario, a large number of MTCDs with
delay-tolerant transmit-limited size packet in low Problem (11) is proved to be a convex function in
achievable rate extending the transmission time as long Appendix 1. And, we can employ Lagrangian function
as possible will have benefits to the energy saving.6 In to minimize the energy consumption in equation (11).28
order to take full use of time and save energy, the total
transmission time should be equal to T
Resource allocation algorithm
KX
+1
tk = T ð6Þ In equation (10), the transmission power is a monoto-
k =1 nically decreasing function with transmission time.
Although the original problem is proved to be convex
Furthermore, to save energy consumption, the and the globally optimal solution can be obtained via
(Co.5) and (Co.6) in equation (5) degenerate into interior point method, the complexity is high. To save
energy, we trade off the transmission time between the
X
mk
Rk, i = rk, i , i 2 Mk , Rhk = rhk + Rk, i = rhk ð7Þ transmission phase and the cooperation phase in the
i = 1, i2Mk UC-NOMA. Assuming that the transmission time of
cooperation phase is tK + 1 = bT , b is the time factor
According to equations (3), (4), and (7), we obtain and b 2 (0, 1) and the total transmission time of trans-
! mission phase is T1 = (1  b)T. Problem (11) is con-
 rk, i  X
i1  2 verted into
2
pk, i jhk, i j = 2 Btk  1 pk, j hk, j  + s2 ð8Þ
j=1
P
K P
mk  rk, i  ^rk, i
s2
min tk jhk, i j2
2 Btk  1 2 Btk
With the help of recursion method p, q, t k=1 i = 1, i2Mk
ð12Þ
 rk, 1  P
K
s:t: t k = T1
pk, 1 jhk, 1 j2 = 2 Btk  1 s2 ð9aÞ k =1

 rk, 2   In practical conditions, MTCDs with limited com-

pk, 2 jhk, 2 j2 = 2 Btk  1 pk, 1 jhk, 1 j2 + s2 puting ability and battery constrained have to process
 rk, 2  r1  ð9bÞ
= 2 Btk  1 2Btk s2 some complex operations without other equipment
assisted. The more residual energy remains, the longer
 rk, i  rk, i1   rk, 1 
lifetime MTCD has. Therefore, based on the residual
pk, i jhk, i j2 = 2Wtk  1 2 Wtk . . . 2 Wtk s2 ð9cÞ
energy and geographic information of MTCD, we
dynamically selected the group head to extend its life-
we have
time in different transmission periods. To reduce the
8 energy consumption and guarantee the information
>
> s2  rBtk, i 
>
< 2 k  1 i=1 upload from the remote location MTCDs, the MTCD
jhk, i j2 close to the BS is easy to be chosen as group head. The
pk, i = ð10aÞ
>
> s2  rBtk, i  ^rk, i
normalized function consisted of distance and residual
>
: 2 k  1 2 Btk i.1
jhk, i j2 energy is
8  rh 
> s2 qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
2 
>
> 2
k
1 k=1  k, i (n) 2
a1 dk, i + a2 Q
BtK + 1
< Wk, i (n) = ð13Þ
jgkj2 
qk = ð10bÞ
>
> s2 rh
k
^rh
k
>
: 2
2BtK + 1  1 2BtK + 1 k.1 where Wk, i (n) is the corresponding normalized function
j gk j of the ith MTCD in group-k during the nth period, a1
6 International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks

Algorithm 1: Joint Time and Power Allocation algorithm

1 Feedback Energy Information: All the MTCDs in one group send their energy information Qk, i (n) to the central controller.
2 Dynamic Group Head Selecting: At the beginning of the nth period, according to equation (14) the central controller
determine the group head of each group and the required transmission time tK + 1 in the cooperation stage UC-NOMA, the
group head determine their transmission power based on equation (10).
3 Fractional Transmit Time Allocation: The central controller according to equation (15) derive the parameters ftk (n)g and
feed back to the MTCDs of each group.
4 Power allocation: After receiving the above parameters, each MTCD determines the optimal transmission power with
equation (10).
5 Residual-energy Updating: At the end of the nth period, each of the MTCDs should update its residual-energy through
equation (14).

and a2 are the weights factor of normalized distance
dk, i = dmax =dk, i and normalized residual energy
Q k, i (n) = Qk, i (n)=Qmax . Qk, i (n) is the residual energy of
the ith MTCD in group-k at the beginning of the nth
period
Qk, i (n) = Qk, i (n  1)  pk, i (n  1)tk,

i (n  1) ð14Þ
where pk, i (n  1) and tk,

i (n  1) are the optimal trans-
mission power and time of the ith MTCD in group-k
during the nth period.
As shown in equation (3), the transmission time is
inversely proportional to channel gain with given trans-
mission power of MTCDs in group-k. In addition, the
transmission time also has an impact on the residual
energy, which determines the lifetime of one group.
Thus, with taking channel gain and residual energy into
consideration, we proposed fractional transmit time
allocation strategy to balance the energy consumption
of the MTCDs group
h
l id schemes, optimal power allocation based on TDMA
Min Qk, i (n)
hl, i 1
tk (n) = K h T ð15Þ
P
l id 1
Min Qk, i (n)hl, i 1
k =1
where tk (n) is the transmission time allocated to
MTCDs in group-k during the nth period,

hk, i = jjhk, i jj=jjhmax jj is the normalized channel gain,
and d(0  d  1) is a decay factor. In the case of d = 0,
it corresponds to equal time allocation among the K
groups. In equation (15), it is clear that when d
increases, more time is allocated to the MTCD with less
residual energy and poor channel gain. The JTPA algo-
rithm consists of dynamic group head selecting, and
fractional transmit time allocation is described in
Algorithm 1. The total computational complexities of
power allocation for three schemes are same, which is
O(M). The total computational complexities of time
allocation for O(K + 1), O(K + 1), and O(2K + 2)
for JTPA-NOMA, PBO-NOMA, OPA-TDMA,
respectively.
Table 1. Simulation parameters.
Parameter Value range
Inter-site distance 500 m
Transmission bandwidth 180 kHz
Payload of each MTCD6 1 kbit
Maximum transmission power6,7 14 dBm
Noise 2174 dBm/Hz
Total energy of each MTCD7 1J
Transmission time T6 1s
Distance-dependent path loss29 Based on 3GPP 36.843
MTCD: machine-type communication device.
Performance evaluations
In this section, we provide simulations to evaluate the
performance of JTPA in the proposed UC-NOMA–
based mMTC scenario. The details of simulation para-
meters are given in Table 1. We refer to the proposed
algorithm as JTPA-NOMA and take two other
(OPA-TDMA)6 and the power back-off scheme in
uplink NOMA (PBO-NOMA),22 for comparison. The
transmission power of MTCD will exceed the maxi-
mum transmission power limit, under heavy payload,
poor channel condition, and severe CCI. The JTPA-
NOMA, PBO-NOMA, and OPA-TDMA schemes will
block the MTCD that exceeds the maximum transmis-
sion power. If an MTCD is blocked, the energy con-
sumption of the MTCD is set to 0.
Besides PBO-NOMA, both JTPA-NOMA and
OPA-TDMA minimize the energy consumption and
prolong the network lifetime; thus, we set PBO-NOMA
as a baseline to illustrate the relationship between net-
work lifetime and the number of MTCDs. With the
same total energy of each MTCD, the network lifetime
is evaluated by the period the first MTCD runs out of
its energy. The Y-axis of Figure 3 depicts the normal-
ized network lifetime, which is defined as the ratio of
network lifetime of JTPA-NOMA and OPA-TDMA to
network lifetime of baseline PBO-NOMA. The number
Han et al. 7

Figure 4. Average energy and power versus different MTCD

numbers.

Figure 3. The normalization network lifetime of baseline

versus the number of MTCDs.

of group is set as 50 and the time factor of cooperation

phase in UC-NOMA is set as 0.05 to simulate a worse
case.
In Figure 3, it can be clearly seen that the lifetime of
JTPA-NOMA is few or hundred times to that of PBO-
NOMA. With the number of MTCDs increasing, the
MTCDs in each group will increase. MTCDs have to
increase transmission power to successfully upload their
payloads under server CCI; this directly leads to the
increase in energy consumption and decrease in mMTC
networks’ lifetime.
Figure 4 shows the average energy consumption and
the average power consumption for different MTCDs
within total time T . The average energy consumption Figure 5. Average energy and power versus different time
and average power consumption are defined as the factors.
average energy and power consumed by each MTCD
in the transmission time T . The curve is obtained by
varying the number of MTCD from 30 to 300. The per- by varying the time factor of cooperation phase in UC-
formance of average energy and average power for NOMA from 0.05 to 0.95. It is obvious that the time
JTPA-NOMA is superior to PBO-NOMA and OPA- factor of cooperation phase has great influence on
TDMA. For the schemes of NOMA, that is, JTPA- JTPA-NOMA and PBO-NOMA; besides, JTPA-
NOMA and PBO-NOMA, due to the number of NOMA outperforms PBO-NOMA and TDMA. With
MTCDs in each group increases with the total number the increase in transmission time of cooperation phase,
of MTCDs, MTCDs have to pay more transmission the average energy consumption of JTPA-NOMA
power to overcome CCI and successfully communicate declines. This is because transmission time is an impor-
with group head, which leads the average energy and tant factor affecting energy consumption. The increase
average power increase with MTCDs’ number. Because in the transmission time in cooperation phase causes
too many MTCDs divided into a group will be blocked the group head to communicate with BS with a lower
when the members of each group reach to a certain power. While with the decrease in transmission time of
value, the energy consumption and power consumption transmission phase, the group member in the transmis-
will keep in a certain value. sion phase has to increase its transmission power to
Figure 5 shows the average energy consumption and communication, and more MTCDs will fail to commu-
the average power consumption of all MTCDs in the nicate since the transmission power exceeds the maxi-
UC-NOMA within total time T . The curve is obtained mum transmission power.
8 International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks
Figure 6. Average energy and power versus different group
numbers.
Figure 7. Average energy efficiency versus different group
numbers.
Figure 6 shows the average energy consumption and
average power consumption versus different number of
groups within total time T . The curve is obtained by
varying the number group from 35 to 70. We can find
that the average energy and power performance of
JTPA-NOMA outperform those of PBO-NOMA and
OPA-NOMA. With the increase in the number of
groups, fewer MTCDs are divided into a group and less
CCI is generated, and the MTCDs deliver data with a
lower transmission power. Thus, the average energy
and average power of JTPA-NOMA decrease with the
increase in the number of groups.
Finally, in Figure 7, we illustrate the average energy
efficiency versus different number of groups within
total time T . The curve is obtained by varying the
group number from 35 to 70. Standing in a point of
energy efficiency, the JTPA-NOMA outperforms than
PBO-NOMA and OPA-NOMA. As the number of
groups increases, more MTCDs successfully transmit
with less transmission power with fewer MTCDs
divided into a group and less CCI generated; thus, the
energy efficiency increases. Furthermore, with the same
number of groups, the larger number of MTCDs will
consume more energy and powers and have higher
energy efficiency, which is shown in Figures 6 and 7.
This is because the members of one group increase with
the number of MTCDs, and MTCDs have to consume
more transmission powers to overcome the increased
CCI and successfully communicate.
Conclusion
In this article, the time allocation and power control
problems in UC-NOMA–based mMTC network were
jointly studied, with the aim of minimizing the energy
consumption and prolonging the network lifetime. By
exploiting the distinctive channel gains of MTCDs, an
MTCD grouping method is introduced to control the
massive MTCDs’ access. Furthermore, a UC-NOMA
scheme is proposed, where the MTCD with poor chan-
nel condition transmits its data to the group head in
the transmission phase; then, the group head transmits
its own data and received data to the BS in the cooper-
ation phase. Based on the proposed dynamic group
head selection scheme, the MTCD with more residual
energy and closer to BS is selected to be the group
head. In addition, fractional transmission time alloca-
tion scheme is proposed to solve the problem of JTPA.
Simulation results have shown that the proposed JTPA
outperforms the PBO-NOMA and OPA-TDMA in
terms of energy minimization.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial sup-
port for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article: This paper is supported by National Key R&D
Program of China no. 2017YFB0801702, Beijing Natural
Science Foundation no. L172033, National Natural Science
Foundation of China no. 61471068, and 111 Project of China
B16006.
ORCID iD
Shujun Han https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6257-7732
Han et al.
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Appendix 1
This part aims to prove problem (9) ia a convex func-
tion. Problem (9) can be written as follows
10 International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks

P
K P
mk P
K Furthermore, given that
tk pk, i + tK + 1 qk
k=1 i = 1, i2Mk k=1
P
K Pmk  rk, i  ^rk, i ^
A = 2X k, i , B = 2Xk, i  1
s2 ð21Þ
= tk 2 Btk  1 2 Btk
jhk, i j2
ð16Þ  
k = 1 i = 1, i2Mk
 rh  ^rh C = 2Xk, i ln 2ðXk, i Þ, D = 2Xk, i  1 ln 2 X^ k, i
P
K
s2
k k
+ tK + 1 jg j 2 2 BtK + 1
 1 2BtK + 1 we have
k
k=1
 
Assuming that Xk, i = rk, i =Wtk , X^k, i = ^rk, i =Wtk , ∂A X^ k, i X^ k, i
Yk = rhk =WtK + 1 , Y^k = ^rhk =WtK + 1 , of which the first = 2 ln 2 
∂tk tk
derivation is  
∂B Xk, i X k, i
= 2 ln 2 
∂Xk, i Xk, i ∂X^ k, i X^ k, i ∂tk tk
= , =  
∂tk tk ∂tk tk ∂C Xk, i X k, i
ð17Þ = 2 ln 2  ðln 2ðXk, i Þ + 1Þ ð22Þ
^ ∂tk tk
∂Yk Yk ∂Y k Y^ k  
= , = ∂D Xk, i 
∂tK + 1 tK + 1 ∂tK + 1 tK + 1 = 2Xk, i ln 2  ln 2 X^ k, i
∂ti tk
Equation (16) is rewritten as follows  
 X^ k, i
+ 2Xk, i  1 ln 2 
X
K X
mk X
K tk
tk pk, i + tK + 1 qk
k=1 i = 1, i2Mk k=1 With the second derivation of Ek , we have
X
K X
mk
s2  ^  
= tk 2Xk, i  1 2X k, i ∂2 Ek X
mk
s2 ∂A
2
jhk, i j = ðB  C  D Þ
k=1 i = 1, i2Mk
ð18Þ ∂(tk )2 i = 1, i2Mk jhk, i j
2 ∂t
i
X
K
s2  ^  
+ tK + 1 2 Yk  1 2 Y k Xmk
s2 ∂B ∂C ∂D
2 + A  
k = 1 j gk j 2 ∂ti ∂ti ∂ti
i = 1, i2M jhk, i j
k
X
K
= Ek + EK + 1 X
mk 2 X^ k, i
s 2 ðln 2Þ2 h Xk, i  ^ 2 i
k=1
= 2
2 X k, i + Xk, i
i = 1, i2Mk jhk, i j tk
where X
mk ^
s2 2X k, i ðln 2Þ2  ^ 2
 X k, i
X
mk
s2  ^ i = 1, i2Mk jhk, i j2 tk
Ek = tk 2
2Xk, i  1 2X k, i
i = 1, i2Mk jhk, i j 0
ð19Þ
X
K
s2  ^ ð23Þ
EK + 1 = tK + 1 2
2 Yk  1 2 Y k
k = 1 j gk j The same can be obtained
With the first derivation of Ek , we have
∂ 2 EK + 1
0 ð24Þ
∂Ek X
mk
s2  ∂(tK + 1 )2
Xk, i X^ k, i
= 2
2 1 2
∂tk i = 1, i2Mk jhk, i j Thus, Problem (9) is convex function of transmission
Xmk 2
    time.
s Xk, i Xk, i X^ k, i
+ tk 2
2 ln 2  2
i = 1, i2Mk jhk, i j
tk
Xmk  
s2  Xk, i X^ X^ k, i
+ tk 2
2  1 2 k, i
ln 2 
i = 1, i2Mk jhk, i j
tk
X
mk ^
s2 2X k, i 
= 2
2Xk, i  1  2Xk, i ln 2ðXk, i Þ
i = 1, i2Mk jhk, i j
X
mk
s2 2X k, i 
^

 2
2Xk, i  1 ln 2 X^ k, i
i = 1, i2Mk jhk, i j
ð20Þ