Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have gained considerable interests in numerous civil applications. To push forward its potentials, cellular-connected UAVs have been introduced. Nevertheless, cellular networks face several bottlenecks such as spectrum scarcity and limited concurrent connectivity. To address these issues, non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) can be adopted. NOMA provides several opportunities for cellular-connected UAVs such as larger rate region, balanced performance between system throughput and fairness, and reduced delay. In this paper, we review important findings of the related studies, and outline new opportunities and challenges in NOMA for cellular-connected UAVs. Monte-Carlo simulations are then performed to analyze the new aerial user’s (AU)’s signal characteristics and evaluate the NOMA performance for co-existence of AU and terrestrial user (TU). Our preliminary results show that NOMA is a promising strategy for cellular-connected UAVs.

无人机已经在众多民用领域中引起了广泛的兴趣。为了发挥其潜力，已经引入了蜂窝式无人飞行器。然而，蜂窝网络面临一些瓶颈，例如频谱稀缺和有限的并发连接。为了解决这些问题，可以采用非正交多路访问（NOMA）。NOMA为连接蜂窝的无人机提供了许多机会，例如更大的速率区域，系统吞吐量和公平性之间的平衡性能以及减少的延迟。在本文中，我们回顾了相关研究的重要发现，并概述了NOMA在蜂窝连接无人机上的新机遇和挑战。然后执行蒙特卡洛模拟，以分析新航空用户（AU）的信号特性，并评估AU和地面用户（TU）共存的NOMA性能。我们的初步结果表明，对于连接蜂窝的无人机而言，NOMA是一种有前途的策略。