Abstract
As 5G networks are being rolled out in many different countries nowadays, the time has come to investigate how to upgrade and expand them toward 6G, where the latter is expected to realize the interconnection of everything as well as the development of a ubiquitous intelligent mobile world for intelligent life. To enable this epic leap in communications, this article provides an overview and outlook on the application of sparse code multiple access (SCMA) for 6G wireless communication systems, which is an emerging disruptive non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) scheme for the enabling of massive connectivity. We propose to apply SCMA to a massively distributed access system whose architecture is based on fiber-based visible light communication, ultra-dense networks, and NOMA. Under this framework, we consider the interactions between optical fronthauls and wireless access links. In order to stimulate more upcoming research in this area, we outline a number of promising directions associated with SCMA for faster, more reliable, and more efficient multiple access in future 6G communication networks.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1-13 |
Number of pages | 13 |
Journal | IEEE Communications Standards Magazine |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2021 |
Bibliographical note
KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2021-06-28Acknowledgements: The work of L. Yu was supported in part by the State Key Laboratory of Computer Architecture (ICT, CAS) Open Project under Grant CARCHB202019, the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants 41865002, 61761030, and 62001201, and the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangxi under Grant 20171BAB202007.
The work of Z. Liu and P. Xiao was supported in part by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council under Grant EP/P03456X/1.
The work of M. Wen was supported in part by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities under Grant 2019SJ02. The work of D. Cai was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 62001190. The work of Y. Wang was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 62061030, and the National Key Research and Development Project under Grants 2018YFB1404303 and 2018YFB14043033.