The increasing proliferation of Internet-of-things (IoT) networks in a given space requires exploring various communication solutions (e.g., cooperative relaying, non-orthogonal multiple access, spectrum sharing) jointly to increase the performance of coexisting IoT systems. However, the design complexity of such a system increases, especially under the constraints of performance targets. In this respect, this paper studies multiple-access enabled relaying by a lower-priority secondary system, which cooperatively relays the incoming information to the primary users and simultaneously transmits its own data. We consider that the direct link between the primary transmitter-receiver pair uses orthogonal multiple access in the first phase. In the second phase, a secondary transmitter adopts a relaying strategy to support the direct link while it uses non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) to serve the secondary receiver. As a relaying scheme, we propose a piece-wise and forward (PF) relay protocol, which, depending on the absolute value of the received primary signal, acts similar to decode-and-forward (DF) and amplify-and-forward (AF) schemes in high and low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), respectively. By doing so, PF achieves the best of these two relaying protocols using the adaptive threshold according to the transmitter-relay channel condition. Under PF-NOMA, first, we find the achievable rate region for primary and secondary receivers, and then we formulate an optimization problem to derive the optimal PF-NOMA time and power fraction that maximize the secondary rate subject to reliability constraints on both the primary and the secondary links. Our simulation results and analysis show that the PF-NOMA outperforms DF-NOMA and AF-NOMA-based relaying techniques in terms of achievable rate regions and rate-guaranteed relay locations.

Collaborative augmented reality (AR), which enables interaction and consistency in multi-user AR scenarios, is a promising technology for AR-guided remote monitoring, optimization, and troubleshooting of complex manufacturing processes. However, for uplink high data rate demands in collaborative-AR, the design of an efficient transmission and resource allocation scheme is demanding in resource-constrained wireless systems. To address this challenge, we propose a collaborative non-orthogonal multiple access (C-NOMA)-enabled transmission scheme by exploiting the fact that multi-user interaction often leads to common and individual views of the scenario (e.g., the region of interest). C-NOMA is designed as a two-step transmission scheme by treating these views separately and allowing users to offload the common views partially. Further, we define an optimization problem to jointly optimize the time and power allocation for AR users, with an objective of minimizing the maximum rate-distortion of the individual views for all users while guaranteeing a target distortion of their common view for its mutual significance. For its inherent non-linearity and non-convexity, we solve the defined problem using a primal-dual interior-point algorithm with a filter line search as well as by developing a successive convex approximation (SCA) method. The simulation results demonstrate that the optimized C-NOMA outperforms the non-collaborative baseline scheme by 23.94% and 77.28% in terms of energy consumption and achievable distortion on the common information, respectively. 

Through the lens of the age-of-information (AoI) metric, this paper takes a fresh look into the performance of coexisting enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) and ultra-reliable low-latency (URLLC) services in the uplink scenario. To reduce AoI, a URLLC user with stochastic packet arrivals has two options: orthogonal multiple access (OMA) with the preemption of the eMBB user (labeled as puncturing) or non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) with the ongoing eMBB transmission. Puncturing leads to lower average AoI at the expense of the decrease in the eMBB user's rate, as well as in signaling complexity. On the other hand, NOMA can provide a higher eMBB rate at the expense of URLLC packet loss due to interference and, thus, the degradation in AoI performance. We study under which conditions NOMA could provide an average AoI performance that is close to the one of the puncturing, while maintaining the gain in the data rate. To this end, we derive a closed-form expression for the average AoI and investigate conditions on the eMBB and URLLC distances from the base station at which the difference between the average AoI in NOMA and in puncturing is within some small gap β. Our results show that with β as small as 0.1 minislot, the eMBB rate in NOMA can be roughly 5 times higher than that of puncturing. Thus, by choosing an appropriate access scheme, both the favorable average AoI for URLLC users and the high data rate for eMBB users can be achieved. 

Through the lens of average and peak age-of-information (AoI), this paper takes a fresh look into the uplink medium access solutions for mission-critical (MC) communication coexisting with enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) service. Considering the stochastic packet arrivals from an MC user, we study three access schemes: orthogonal multiple access (OMA) with eMBB preemption (puncturing), non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), and rate-splitting multiple access (RSMA), the latter two both with concurrent eMBB transmissions. Puncturing is found to reduce both average AoI and peak AoI (PAoI) violation probability but at the expense of decreased eMBB user rates and increased signaling complexity. Conversely, NOMA and RSMA offer higher eMBB rates but may lead to MC packet loss and AoI degradation. The paper systematically investigates the conditions under which NOMA or RSMA can closely match the average AoI and PAoI violation performance of puncturing while maintaining data rate gains. Closed-form expressions for average AoI and PAoI violation probability are derived, and conditions on the eMBB and MC channel gain difference with respect to the base station are analyzed. Additionally, optimal power and rate splitting factors in RSMA are determined through an exhaustive search to minimize MC outage probability. Notably, our results indicate that with a small loss in the average AoI and PAoI violation probability the eMBB rate in NOMA and RSMA can be approximately five times higher than that achieved through puncturing.