A new non-orthogonal multiple access scheme performing simultaneous transmission to multiple users characterized by different signal-to-noise ratios is proposed. Different users are multiplexed by storing their codewords into a multiplexing matrix ac
cording to properly designed patterns and then mapping the columns of the matrix onto the symbols of a higher-order constellation. At the receiver, an interference cancellation algorithm is employed in order to achieve a higher spectral efficiency than orthogonal user multiplexing. Rate-Adaptive Constellation Expansion Multiple Access (RA-CEMA) is an alternative to conventional superposition coding as a solution for transmission on the degraded broadcast channel. It combines the benefits of an increased spectral efficiency with the advantages of reusing the coding and modulation schemes already used in contemporary communication systems, thereby facilitating its adoption in standards.
We propose an enhanced version of trellis coded multiple access (TCMA), an overloaded multiple access scheme that outperforms the original TCMA in terms of achieved spectral efficiency. Enhanced TCMA (ETCMA) performs simultaneous transmission of mult
iple data streams intended for users experiencing similar signal-to-noise ratios and can be employed both in the uplink and in the downlink of wireless systems, thus overcoming one of the main limitations of TCMA. Thanks to a new receiver algorithm, ETCMA is capable of delivering a significantly higher spectral efficiency. We show that ETCMA approaches the capacity of the Additive White Gaussian Noise channel for a wide range of signal-to-noise ratios.
