Journal of Communications and Information Networks, Vol.5, No.2, Jun.
2020 Research paper
Joint Beamforming and Phase Shift Design
in Downlink UAV Networks with
IRS-Assisted NOMA
Shiyu Jiao, Fang Fang, Xiaotian Zhou, Haixia Zhang
Abstract—This paper investigates a simple design
of intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) based unmanned
aerial vehicles (UAV) assisted multiple-input single-output
nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA) downlink net-
work. The aim of this paper is to maximize the rate
of the strong user while guaranteeing the target rate of
the weak user given by the optimized UAV horizontal
position. We first optimize the location of IRS-UAV. Then
we propose an iterative algorithm to optimize the transmit
beamforming and phase shift of IRS alternatively. For the
beamforming optimization, the closed-form expressions
of the optimal beamforming vectors are derived. Then,
given by the obtained beamforming, we propose two
methods to obtain the optimal phase shifting of IRS. One
is the semidefinite relaxation based iteration algorithm
which provides high data rate and the other one is based
on successive convex approximation technique which has
low complexity. Finally, simulation results are provided
to show that the performance of the two proposed algo-
rithms are significantly better than using random phase
shifting scenario and IRS based UAV-assisted orthogonal
frequency-division multiple access scheme.
Keywords—UAV, IRS, beamforming, convex optimiza-
tion, NOMA
I. I NTRODUCTION
I t is widely recognized that the year 2020 is the begin-
ning of 5G era, where the performance of mobile com-
Manuscript received May 02, 2020; revised Jun. 01, 2020; accepted Jun.
06, 2020. This work was in part supported by National Natural Science Foun-
dation of China (Nos. 61971270 and 61860206005) and Shandong Provincial
Natural Science Foundation (No. ZR2019QF016). The associate editor coor-
dinating the review of this paper and approving it for publication was S. Zhou.
S. Y. Jiao, F. Fang. School of Electrical and Electronic Engineer-
ing, the University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK (e-mail:
shiyu.jiao@manchester.ac.uk; fang.fang@manchester.ac.uk).
X. T. Zhou, H. X. Zhang. School of Control Science and Engineer-
ing, Shandong University, Jinan 250061, China (e-mail: xtzhou@sdu.edu.cn;
haixia.zhang@sdu.edu.cn).
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munications is expected to be dramatically improved with
the new deployed 5G networks. Different from its former
counterpart, i.e., 4G, one great feature of 5G is his capabil-
ity of diversely enabling the vertical industries such as ve-
hicle networks, remote medical service as well as industry
Internet of things (IoT). However, with the increasing num-
ber of new applications, 5G itself is still in evolution to pro-
vide even higher capacity, lower energy consumption and la-
tency to fulfill the specific requirements of these emerging
applications[1,2] . Among the numerous newly proposed tech-
niques, intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is considered as one
promising solution to overcome the power consumption chal-
lenges in massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and
millimeter-wave (mmWave) communications[3] . In Ref. [4],
the related challenges and future research directions using IRS
into nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA) have also been
investigated, for example, developing low-complexity algo-
rithms for optimizing the IRS coefficients and making it eas-
ier for the entire network to achieve the best reflection coeffi-
cients. IRS is a man-made surface which is equipped with a
huge number of low-cost passive reflecting elements to recon-
figure the propagation characteristics of the transmitted sig-
nal and electronically controlled by integrated electronics[5] .
For instance, if there is no line-of-sight (LoS) path between
transmitter and receivers (i.e., the direct path is blocked by
obstacles), IRS can efficiently solve this problem by creating
an extra path. It is no doubt that IRS can also strengthen the
received signal of those users who have an LoS path. Since
the IRS technology requires much less energy consumption
than some existing technologies, for example, amplify-and-
forward relays, it has been considered as a promising effec-
tive and green solution in the future wireless communication
system[6] .
On the other hand, the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV)-
assisted wireless communication network has been proposed
as another promising technology for future wireless commu-
nications. Because UAV is equipped with the communication
and signal processing capability, it can act as the moving base
station (BS)/relay node among the multiple users in the net-
work. Due to the altitude and flexible deployment provided
 Joint Beamforming and Phase Shift Design in Downlink UAV Networks with IRS-Assisted NOMA
by UAV, the system coverage can be further boosted with
LoS transmission. In 2015, the authors of Ref. [7] proposed
the UAV-assisted wireless network which is a quite promising
scheme especially for the area without infrastructures such as
mountainous terrain or someplace where infrastructures are
destroyed by nature disasters or man-made. Ref. [8] provided
overviews of the challenges and opportunities of UAV-assisted
wireless networks, and emphasized two key UAV-oriented
technologies which can improve the performance of the mo-
bile network. In addition, Ref. [8] also reveals that the UAV
assisted-wireless communication has features of fast deploy-
ment, flexible configuration and better communication chan-
nel LoS link, compared with general wireless communication
such as terrestrial communications or high-altitude platforms
based communication. The authors in Ref. [9] investigated
the interplay between the UAV assisted mmWave commu-
nications, indicating that most deficiencies of the terrestrial
mmWave communication system can be compensated by the
proposed scheme thanks to the unique capabilities of UAV
such as fast deployment and flexible configuration. However,
though numerous advantages can be provided by UAV, the
power constraints may be the bottleneck of the performance,
as the UAV is usually empowered by batteries without con-
stant energy supply. Moreover, due to the size and compu-
tation capability of UAV, it is also impractical to perform the
power optimization with high complexity.
The potential advantages of UAV and IRS motivate the re-
searchers to consider combining them together, resulting the
IRS based UAV communication networks[10,11] . Indeed, simi-
lar to other MIMO-UAV enabled networks, as one newly pro-
posed idea, IRS-UAV also has some challenges. For instance,
only a small number of onboard antennas can be equipped
on each UAV due to the weight, size and energy consump-
tion constraints, which limits the MIMO gains[3] . However,
as reported in Refs. [10,11], there are also many potential ad-
vantages of combining UAV and IRS. From the aspect of IRS
implementation, with the help of UAV the IRS can be de-
ployed more flexibly with elevated position, where the LoS
links between IRS and the transceiver ends can be easily es-
tablished especially in the crowded urban scenario[10] . While
from the aspect of UAV, as IRS requires only phase shifting
to reflect the signal from BS to users in a passive manner, it
requires tiny transmitter module, which may lower the cost
of communication-enabled UAV and even potentially reduce
the communication related power cost and equipment loads of
UAV[11] .
In this paper, we consider the IRS-UAV based coopera-
tive downlink transmission where the UAV which is equipped
with IRS array acts as the relay node between the BS and
multiple users. Moreover, to further improve the spectral ef-
ficiency of the system, NOMA is also considered. NOMA
has been also introduced as a promising and key technology
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139
in the next generation wireless communication network due
to its superior performance on spectrum efficiency, user fair-
ness guarantee and massive connectivity support[12,13] . The
key idea is to use the power domain for multiple access. In
other words, it allows multiple users using all the same com-
munication resources including frequency, space and spread-
ing code simultaneously[14-16] , where succesive-interference-
cancellation (SIC) is used to decode multiple data flows[17] .
In the IRS-assisted multiple-input single-output (MISO)-
NOMA system, beamforming vectors and phase shift ma-
trix are two key factors to improve the system performance.
Therefore, in this paper, beamforming vectors and phase shift
matrix are optimized to improve the system performance af-
ter the optimal location of the IRS based UAV is obtained.
In the literature, the authors in Ref. [18] investigated the two
users MISO-NOMA downlink system and gave the optimal
beamforming vectors in closed-form expression to minimize
the transmission power. Based on the work in Ref. [18], the
authors in Ref. [19] optimized the beamforming vectors and
phase shift matrix jointly in the two users IRS-assisted MISO-
NOMA downlink system for the same objective (i.e., to min-
imize the transmission power). Refs. [20,21] optimized the
sum rate in an IRS-assisted MISO-NOMA downlink system
with two different ways respectively, but closed-form expres-
sions for beamforming vectors and phase shift matrix were not
provided.
In this paper, we aim to jointly design the optimal UAV hor-
izontal location, the optimal beamforming vectors and phase
shift matrix with respect to the proposed IRS-UAV based
MISO-NOMA system with the two-user case. The purpose
is to maximize the data rate of the strong user with quality
of services (QoS) constraints of the weak user in the system
described above. Our contributions are briefly summarized
as follows. We first optimize the UAV horizontal position,
then provide the closed-form expressions of optimal beam-
forming vectors under any given phase matrix. Subsequently,
we propose two algorithms to find the optimal phase shift ma-
trix by using the obtained closed-form expressions of opti-
mal beamforming. The first one exploits semidefinite relax-
ation (SDR) with the optimal closed-form beamforming ex-
pressions to find the optimal phase shift matrix, which has a
higher complexity than the second one but can achieve ex-
traordinary performance. The second algorithm utilizes suc-
cessive convex approximation (SCA) based on the derived op-
timal beamforming closed-form expression, which has lower
complexity than the SDR based algorithm. Furthermore, com-
pared with the case of randomly generated phase shift matrix
or IRS-assisted orthogonal frequency-division multiple access
(IRS-OFDMA), the proposed IRS based UAV NOMA system
can yield much better performance.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section II de-
scribes the system model and the problem formulation. Sec-
 140 Journal of Communications and Information Networks
BS IRS
g
UAV
g1k
gk
UE1
UE2
Figure 1 IRS NOMA system model
tion III provides the closed-form expression of the optimal
beamforming vectors and two algorithms to find the optimal
phase shift. Section IV compares the simulation results in dif-
ferent degrees with IRS-OFDMA and random phase shift ma-
trix case. In the end, section V concludes this paper.
II. S YSTEM M ODEL AND
P ROBLEM F ORMULATION
A. System Model
We consider a downlink IRS based UAV-assisted NOMA
network shown in Fig. 1. In this system, one base station (BS)
equipped with M antennas serves two single-antenna users.
One UAV equipped with IRS is implemented as a relay node
to provide an extra link to the users. The IRS module with
N passive phase shift elements is implemented on the UAV to
flexibly assist the signal transmission by adjusting the location
of UAV and the phase shifting of the IRS. Thus, both users
are served by two links including a direct link and a reflection
link. According to the NOMA principle, the BS transmits the
superposition coding to those two users. Hence, the received
signal at each user can be represented as
yk = hH
k (ω1 s1 + ω2 s2 ) + nk , k = 1, 2,
where sk is the transmission signal for user k with the expec-
tation of E[|sk |] = 1, and ωk is the M × 1 vector which de-
notes the complex beamforming vector for user k and nk ∼
C N (0, σ 2 ) is the addictive white Gaussian noise (AWGN)
with mean zero and variance σ 2 . hH k ∈ C
1×M denotes the
channel gain from the BS to user k, which can be written as
hH H H
k = g1k Θgg + gk ,
H ∈ C1×N and g ∈ CN×M denote the channel gain be-
where g1k
tween the IRS-UAV and user k, and the channel gain between
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the IRS-UAV and the BS respectively. gkH ∈ C1×M is the chan-
nel gain between the BS and user k. In general, we consider
the propagation path between the BS and users is non-line-of-
sight (NLoS). However, in practice, there exists an LoS be-
tween aerial platform (i.e., the UAV) and ground nodes (i.e.,
the BS and users) in high possibility. Hence, we assume that
g1k and g follow the Rician distribution and gk is the Rayleigh
fading channel gain. Thanks to the flexibility deployment of
UAV, it can be easily set to the optimal position to improve
performance of system. For example, we can set the altitude
of UAV as the BS to minimize the distance between BS and
IRS-UAV. Define Θ = diag(ejθ1 , · · · , ejθN ) as the phase shift
matrix of IRS and θn ∈ [0, 2π] represents the phase shifting.
In NOMA systems, SIC is applied at the strong user to re-
move the interference from the weak user. Without any loss of
generality, the channel gains of these two users can be sorted
as |h1 | > |h2 |. We assume that the SIC decoding order is
fixed, from user 2 to user 1. In other words, user 1 is the
strong user and the user 2 is the weak user. By applying SIC,
user 1 decodes the signal of user 2 and removes it perfectly,
i.e., user 1 has no interference in this system. Therefore, user
2 decodes its own signal and treats the signal of user 1 as in-
terference simply. Therefore, the achievable data rate of these
two users are
(
R1 = lb (1 + SNR1 ),
(3)
R2 = lb (1 + min{SINR2,1 , SINR2,2 }),
where
hH H
1 ω1 ω1 h1
SNR1 = , (4)
σ2
hH H
1 ω2 ω2 h1
SINR2,1 = , (5)
hH H
1 ω1 ω1 h1 + σ
2
hH H
2 ω2 ω2 h2
SINR2,2 = , (6)
hH H
2 ω1 ω1 h2 + σ
2
respectively represent the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of user 1
to decode its own signal, the signal-to-interference-plus-noise
ratio (SINR) of user 1 to decode the user 2’s signal and the
SINR of user 2 to decode its own signal. This paper aims to
(1) maximize the data rate of the strong user, i.e., user 1’s data
rate. In the following, we provide the problem formulation
and solutions.
B. Problem Formulation
In this work, we assume that the BS knows the entire chan-
nel state information. We can simply formulate and solve this
problem by two steps. Firstly, we optimize the horizontal po-
sition for any given altitude of UAV. Secondly, we optimize
(2)
the beamforming of BS and the phase shift of IRS-UAV.
According to Fig. 2, we first formulate the UAV position
optimization problem. hBS and hUAV are the altitudes of the
 Joint Beamforming and Phase Shift Design in Downlink UAV Networks with IRS-Assisted NOMA 141

UAV based IRS (9d) is the total transmission power constraint. Constraint (9e)
y
considers the IRS phase shift matrix Θ = diag(ejθ1 , · · · , ejθN ).
Since maximizing data rate of one user is equivalent to max-
hUAV dIU imizing its SINR, thus the log function can be omitted, and
Z dBI problem (9) can be rewritten as
hH H
1 ω1 ω1 h1
max , (10a)
BS {Θ ,ω1 ,ω2 } σ2
dBU
hBS
s.t. r1min σ 2 − hH H
1 ω1 ω1 h1 6 0, (10b)
x
UE1 UE2 r2min hH H min 2 H H
1 ω1 ω1 h1 + r2 σ − h1 ω2 ω2 h1 6 0, (10c)

Figure 2 Relative position model r2min hH H min 2 H H

2 ω1 ω1 h2 + r2 σ − h2 ω2 ω2 h2 6 0, (10d)

BS and the UAV respectivley, and dBU denotes the distance kω1 k2 + kω2 k2 − Pt 6 0, (10e)
between the BS and users. We use the same notation rule for (9e), (10f)
dBI and the dIU . Considering the path loss, (2) can be rewritten min
as where rimin = 2Ri − 1.
H Θg
g1k gkH According to the fact that kωk k2 = ωkH ωk = Tr(ωk ωk ), it
hH
k = + , (7)
PLBI PLIU PLBU can be simply found that the constraint (10e) is equivalent to
αBI
where PLBI = C0 dBI denotes the path loss between the BS Tr(ω1 ω1H ) + Tr(ω2 ω2H ) − Pt 6 0. (11)
and the IRS-UAV, and we use the same notation rule for PLIU
and PLBU . C0 denotes the path loss at reference distance Subsequently, we found that the problem is nonconvex and
D0 = 1 meter. dBI and αBI represent the distance and the path challenging to solve. Therefore, we divide it into two subprob-
loss exponent between the BS and IRS-UAV, respectively. Ob- lems. That means we can fix one of the variables phase shift-
viously, only the first term of (7) is related to the UAV posi- ing or beamforming to solve another one. For example, we
tion (the second term can be treated as a constant). Hence, optimize the beamforming vectors by any given phase shift-
for any given user’s position w = (xu1 , yu1 ), there always ex- ing matrix Θ. In the next sections, we provide all details on
ists a UAV horizontal position q = (xUAV , yUAV ) to minimize how to solve our original problem.
the path loss from the BS to the IRS-UAV then to the strong
user (i.e., UE1). Due to the propagation path from BS to IRS- III. O PTIMAL B EAMFORMING V ECTORS
UAV and from IRS-UAV to users are both LoS, we can assume AND P HASE S HIFT M ATRIX
αBI = αIU = α. Therefore, the position optimization problem
can be formulated as In this section, the UAV position is optimized firstly. Then
we derive the optimal expressions of beamforming vectors,
min PLBI PLIU . (8) based on which we propose two algorithms to obtain the opti-
{q} mal IRS phase shift matrix. The first one is an iteration algo-
For any given w and the corresponding optimized q, we aim rithm based on SDR. The second one is based on SCA whose
to improve the data rate of the strong user, thus considering the complexity is lower.
QoS constraint of the weak user, the optimization problem can A. Optimal IRS-UAV Horizontal Position
be formulated as
According to Fig. 2, we can easily obtain dBI and dIU by
max R1 , (9a)
q
{Θ ,ω1 ,ω2 } dBI = (hUAV − hBS )2 + ||q||2 ,
(12)
s.t. R1 > Rmin
1 , (9b)
q
dIU = h2UAV + ||q − w||2 .
R2 > Rmin
2 , (9c)
Then the problem (8) can be written as
kω1 k + kω2 k2
2
6 Pt , (9d)
0 6 θn 6 2π, n = 1, · · · , N, (9e) min C02 ((hUAV − hBS )2 + ||q||2 )(h2UAV + ||q − w||2 ))α/2 . (13)
{q}

where Rmin min

1 and R2 are respectively the minimum target rate By observing and analyzing Fig. 2, as Ref. [10] proved, we
of two users. Pt is the transmission power of the base sta- can obtain minimum ||q||2 and ||q − w||2 when the horizon-
tion. Constraints (9b) and (9c) guarantee the QoS of two users. tal position of IRS-UAV located at its projection point on the

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 142 Journal of Communications and Information Networks

straight line connecting the origin point with the users’ posi- the expression of Θ, and ωk , k = 1, 2. In the next, we provide
tions (i.e., the x-axis). the closed-form optimal beamforming vectors respect to Θ by
Lemma 1 The horizontal placement of the IRS-UAV is using the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions.
Proposition 2 The optimal solution of the problem (17) is
q∗ = ξ ∗ (ρ)w, (14) s
∗ Pt hH H min 2
2 ω̃2 ω̃2 h2 − r2 σ Tr(W̃2 )
with ω1 = ω̃1 ,
r2 Tr(W̃2 )h2 ω̃1 ω̃1 h2 + Tr(W̃1 )hH
min H H H
2 ω̃2 ω̃2 h2
1 1
 2, if ρ > ,
 s
2

Pt r2min hH H min 2
2 ω̃1 ω̃1 h2 + r2 σ Tr(W̃1 )
ξ ∗ (ρ) = r r ω2∗ = ω̃2 ,
 1 − 1 − ρ 2 or 1 + 1 − ρ 2 , otherwise,

 r2min Tr(W̃2 )hH H H H
2 ω̃1 ω̃1 h2 + Tr(W̃1 )h2 ω̃2 ω̃2 h2
2 4 2 4 (18)
(15) where
h hH
where ρ = hUAV /dBU and ξ is called the ratio coefficient. (IM + r2min h2H h2 )−1 h1
2 2
Proof Please see the proof of Proposition 2 in Ref. [10]. ω̃1 = H , (19)
h h
|(IM + r2min h2H h2 )−1 h1 |
2 2

h2
B. Optimal Beamforming Vectors ω̃2 = . (20)
|h2 |
We first assume that the IRS phase shift is given, which
means the Θ related constraint (10f) can be ignored. Addi- Proof Please see Appendix B.
tionally, we introduce two new variables Qk = ωk ωkH , k =
C. Optimal Phase Shift by Applying the SDR Based It-
1, 2. Then the problem (10) can be rewritten as
eration Algorithm
hH
1 Q1 h1 Given by the derived beamforming vectors, we now fo-
max , (16a)
{Q1 0,Q2 0} σ2 cus on IRS phase shift matrix optimization. Assuming that
s.t. r1min σ 2 − hH we have the initialized beamforming vector ωk , k = 1, 2. Ad-
1 Q1 h1 6 0, (16b)
ditionally, rewrite the channel gain (i.e., (2)) into a more
r2min hH min 2 H
1 Q1 h1 + r2 σ − h1 Q2 h1 6 0, (16c) tractable form as following.

r2min hH min 2 H
2 Q1 h2 + r2 σ − h2 Q2 h2 6 0, (16d) hH H H H
k = g0k Θg1k + g = ṽ Gk , (21)
Tr(Q1 ) + Tr(Q2 ) − Pt 6 0 (16e) where ṽ = [v, 1]H , Gk = [diag(g0kH )g ; g H ]
1k and
rank(Qk ) = 1, k = 1, 2. (16f) v = [ejθ1 , · · · , ejθN ]. Hence, we have hH ω ω
k k k k
Hh =

ṽ H Gk ωk ωkH GH H H
k ṽ = ṽ xkk xkk ṽ = Tr(Xkk Ṽ ), where
The problem (16) is still a nonconvex problem due to the rank xkk = Gk ωk . Thus, according to the SDR technique[22] ,
constraint (16f). Hence, we use SDR[22] to relax the rank con- and omitting the rank-one constraint the problem can be
straint. Then the rank constraint can be reduced directly and reformulated as
the problem is still tight. We will prove it in this paper later.
max Tr(X11 Ṽ ), (22a)
Proposition 1 Without the rank constraint (16f), the optimal {Ṽ }
solutions Q∗k of problem (16) still always satisfies the con- s.t. r1min σ 2 − Tr(X11 Ṽ ) 6 0, (22b)
straint rank(Q∗k ) = 1, k = 1, 2.
r2min Tr(X11 Ṽ ) + r2min σ 2 − Tr(X12 Ṽ ) 6 0, (22c)
Proof Please see Appendix A.
The reduced problem now becomes r2min Tr(X21 Ṽ ) + r2min σ 2 − Tr(X22 Ṽ ) 6 0, (22d)

hH
1 Q1 h1 Tr(ω1 ω1H ) + Tr(ω2 ω2H ) − Pt 6 0, (22e)
max ,
{Q1 0,Q2 0} σ2 (17)
0 6 |vn |2 6 1, n = 1, · · · , N + 1, (22f)
s.t. (16b) ∼ (16e).
Ṽ  0. (22g)
Problem (17) is a homogeneous quadratically constrained
quadratic program (QCQP). Thus we can use convex opti- where vn is the diagonal elements of Ṽ . Now problem (22) is
mization tools and softwares, for example, CVX to solve this a standard semidefinite programming (SDP) and can be solved
problem to obtain the optimal solution[22,23] . However, the by optimization solvers simply like CVX. Then we apply the
phase shifting matrix Θ is actually unknown. We need to find eigenvalue decomposition (EVD) as Ṽ = U ΛU H to obtain

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 Joint Beamforming and Phase Shift Design in Downlink UAV Networks with IRS-Assisted NOMA 143

Algorithm 1 Obtain the optimal phase shift ṽ D. Optimal Phase Shift by Applying SCA
1: Initialize two feasible values of ωk to initialize the Xkk . By using the closed-form optimal beamforming vectors
Or initialize a phase shift vector ṽ to get two feasible values of ωk by (18) to problem (10), the phase optimization problem can be
using (18) to initialize the Xkk . written as
2: Repeat: Solving the SDR problem (22) by CVX to obtain Ṽ . ∗ ∗H
hH
1 ω1 ω1 h1
3: Obtain ṽ by applying EVD. max , (24a)
{Θ } σ2
4: Update hk by using (21).
∗ ∗H
5: Update ωk by using (18), (19) and (20). s.t. r1min σ 2 − hH
1 ω1 ω1 h1 6 0, (24b)
∗ ∗H H ∗ ∗H
6: Until: The value of objective function in (22a) converges. r2min hH min 2
1 ω1 ω1 h1 + r2 σ − h1 ω2 ω2 h1 6 0, (24c)
(10f). (24d)
the solution, where U = [e1 , · · · , eN+1 ] is a unitary matrix and
Since constraints (10d) and (10e) have been included in our
Λ = diag(λ1 , · · · , λN+1 ) is a diagonal matrix. Then we have
closed-form beamforming (18)∼(20), these two constraints
  can be removed directly. Furthermore, we can obtain the two
ṽ1 ṽN expressions below by some manipulation.
ṽ = ,··· , ,1 , (23)
ṽN+1 ṽN+1
∗ ∗H Pt |h2 |2 |h1 |4 − r2min σ 2 |h1 |4
hH
1 ω1 ω1 h1 = , (25)
where ṽ = U Λ1/2 r. r ∈ C(N+1)×1 is a randomly generated r2min |hH 2 2
1 h2 | + |h1 | |h2 |
2

vector satisfying r ∈ CN(0, IN+1 ).

∗ ∗H Pt r2min |hH 4 min 2 2 H
1 h2 | + r2 σ |h1 | |h1 h2 |
2
Remark 1 Here we need to check whether the rank of the hH
1 ω2 ω2 h1 = min H
. (26)
r2 |h2 |2 |h1 h2 |2 + |h1 |2 |h2 |4
solved Ṽ is one. If not, the randomization technique can be
used to generate a set of rank-one solutions[22] . Proof Please refer to Appendix C.
Substitute hk using (21), then (25) and (26) become
Remark 2 To implement this algorithm, one challenge is to
find two feasible initialized ωk or one initialized ṽ. For the ∗ ∗H Pt χ|Φ|2 − r2min σ 2 |Φ|2
hH
1 ω1 ω1 h1 = , (27)
simulation carried out in this paper, we allocated a half power r2min |η|2 + Φ χ
to each of the users and used a randomly generated phase to
initialize the ωk or used a randomly generated complex vector ∗ ∗H Pt r2min |η|4 + r2min σ 2 Φ
hH
1 ω2 ω2 h1 = , (28)
with modulus of 1 to initialize the ṽ. r2min χ|η|2 + Φ|χ|2
Complexity analyzing. In Algorithm 1, we solve an SDP where Φ = ṽ H G1 GH H H H H
1 ṽ, χ = ṽ G2 G2 ṽ and η = ṽ G1 G2 ṽ.
and then use an EVD for each iteration. Hence, we follow We note that the problem (24) is non-convex with respect
the method of Ref. [22] to analyze the complexity. In gen- to ṽ. Hence, we apply SCA to obtain the suboptimal solution
eral, most of convex optimization toolboxes apply the interior- of the phase shift vector with a very low complexity.
point algorithm to solve SDPs. Therefore, the complexity Define (27) and (28) to be f1 (ṽ) and f2 (ṽ) respectively.
of Algorithm 1 is O(Iite max{6, N + 1}4 (N + 1)(1/2) log(1/ε)) Define the numerators and denominators of (27) and (28)
where ε denotes the predefined accuracy of SDR solution and as f1n (ṽ), f2n (ṽ), f1d (ṽ) and f2d (ṽ) respectively. The first
Iite is the number of outer layer iterations. derivation of f1n (ṽ), f2n (ṽ), f1d (ṽ) and f2d (ṽ) are

5 f1n (ṽ) = 2Pt G2 GH H H 2 H H H H H min 2 H H H

2 ṽ(ṽ G1 G1 ṽ) + 4(ṽ G2 G2 ṽ)(ṽ G1 G1 ṽ)G1 G1 ṽ − 4r2 σ (ṽ G1 G1 ṽ)G1 G1 ṽ, (29)
5 f2n (ṽ) = 2Pt r2min |ṽ H G1 GH 2 H H H H H H H H min 2
2 ṽ| [(G1 G2 + G2 G1 )ṽ(ṽ G2 G1 ṽ) + (ṽ G1 G2 ṽ)(G2 G1 + G1 G2 )ṽ] + r2 σ

[2G1 GH H H 2 H H H H H H H H H H
1 ṽ|ṽ G1 G2 ṽ| + (ṽ G1 G1 ṽ)((G1 G2 + G2 G1 )ṽ(ṽ G2 G1 ṽ) + (ṽ G1 G2 ṽ)(G2 G1 + G1 G2 )ṽ)],
(30)
5 f1d (ṽ) = r2min [(G1 GH H H H H H H H H H H
2 + G2 G1 )ṽ(ṽ G2 G1 ṽ) + (ṽ G1 G2 ṽ)(G2 G1 + G1 G2 )ṽ] + 2G1 G1 ṽ(ṽ G1 G2 ṽ) +
2(ṽ H G1 GH H
1 ṽ)G2 G2 ṽ, (31)

5 f2d (ṽ) = r2min (2G2 GH H H 2 H H H H H H

2 ṽ|ṽ G1 G2 ṽ| + (ṽ G2 G2 ṽ)((G1 G2 + G2 G1 )ṽ(ṽ G2 G1 ṽ) +

(ṽ H G1 GH H H H H H 2 H H H H H
2 ṽ)(G2 G1 + G1 G2 )ṽ))) + 2G1 G1 ṽ(ṽ G2 G2 ṽ) + 4(ṽ G1 G1 ṽ)(ṽ G2 G2 ṽ)G2 G2 ṽ. (32)

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 144 Journal of Communications and Information Networks

The first derivative of f1 (ṽ) and f2 (ṽ) are given as 20

Data rate of the strong user (bit∙s−1∙Hz−1)

Optimized with proposed algorithm
Random phase shift
Conventional NOMA
5 f1n (ṽ) f1d (ṽ) − f1n (ṽ) 5 f1d (ṽ)
5 f1 (ṽ) = 2 (ṽ)
, (33)
f1d
15
5 f2n (ṽ) f2d (ṽ) − f2n (ṽ) 5 f2d (ṽ)
5 f2 (ṽ) = 2 (ṽ)
. (34)
f2d
By applying the Taylor expansion to the problem (24) at a 10
feasible point ṽ0 , the optimization problem (24) can be ap-
proximated as

max t, (35a) 5
{ṽ} 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
H Tansmission power (dBm)
s.t. f1 (ṽ0 ) + [5 f1 (ṽ0 )] (ṽ − ṽ0 ) > t, (35b)
Figure 3 The maximized data rate of the strong user versus transmission
f1 (ṽ0 ) + [5 f1 (ṽ0 )]H (ṽ − ṽ0 ) > r1min σ 2 , (35c) power, M = 4, N = 10

f2 (ṽ0 ) − r2min f1 (ṽ0 )+

20

Data rate of the strong user (bit∙s−1∙Hz−1)

[5 f2 (ṽ0 ) − r2min 5 f1 (ṽ0 )]H > r2min σ 2 , (35d) Optimized with proposed algorithm
Optimized with SCA
18 IRS-OFDMA
0 6 |ṽn | 6 1, n = 1, · · · , N + 1. (35e)
16
Now the problem (35) is a convex problem and can be solved
very easily by convex optimization solvers, such as CVX[23] . 14
Remark 3 To implement this method, the most important
point is to find the feasible ṽ0 . We can easily generate an 12

(N +1)×1 vector ṽ0 randomly, whose first N elements satisfy

10
the constraint (29e) and the last element equals 1.
8
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
IV. S IMULATION R ESULTS Tansmission power (dBm)

In this section, we provide our simulation results to ana-
lyze and demonstrate the performance of the proposed algo-
rithms. As shown in Fig. 2, considering a downlink MISO
IRS-NOMA system model assisted by UAV, we assume the
BS is located at the point (0, 0, 20), and the IRS based UAV
is located at (xUAV , yUAV , 50). User 1 and user 2 are located
at (50, 0, 0) and (100, 0, 0) respectively. Reviewing our sys-
tem model, we set the Rician fading channel for the channels
between the BS and the IRS-UAV and between the IRS-UAV
and users (i.e., g and g1k ) as[24]
r r
Ω 1
G=H + HR , (36)
Ω + IM Ω + IM
where H denotes the deterministic component and HR rep-
resents the Rayleigh fading component respectively. Ω is the
Rician K-factor. It is clear that the channel model (36) above
is reduced to the pure LoS channel when Ω → ∞ or to the
Rayleigh channel when Ω = 0. For path loss related parame-
ters, we set C0 = −30 dB, αBU = 2.5 and αBI = αIU = 2. For
other simulation parameters, we set σ 2 = −40 dBm, the min-
imum target rate for user 1 is Rmin −1 · Hz−1 ), the
1 = 1 (bit · s
minimum target rate for user 2 is R2 = 1.2 (bit · s−1 · Hz−1 )
min
Figure 4 Comparison between IRS-NOMA and IRS-OFDMA, M = 4,
N = 10
and the convergence threshold is ε = 0.001. From Fig. 3 to
Fig. 7, with the UAV located at the optimal position, we first
demonstrate the performance improvement brought by IRS.
Subsequently, we show the data rate performance of the strong
user with different UAV positions.
Fig. 3 shows the achieved data rate versus the transmission
power for the strong user in three different scenarios. Here
we set the number of antenna M = 4 and the number of IRS
elements N = 10. It is obvious that the data rate of the strong
user increases for all considered schemes with the transmis-
sion power increasing. As we expected, IRS-NOMA system is
significantly better than that of the conventional NOMA sys-
tem even we use the random phase shift. Furthermore, the
performance of the proposed algorithm significantly outper-
forms the “random phase shift” scheme.
Fig. 4 depicts the fact that IRS-NOMA is much better than
the IRS-OFDMA. On the other hand, it shows that the per-
formance of the proposed SDR based iteration algorithm is
slightly better than that of the SCA based algorithm. This is

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 Joint Beamforming and Phase Shift Design in Downlink UAV Networks with IRS-Assisted NOMA 145

20 24

Data rate of the strong user (bit∙s−1∙Hz−1)

Data rate of the strong user (bit∙s−1∙Hz−1)

18 22
16
20
14
IRS-NOMA, Pt=10 dBm
12 18 IRS-OFDMA, Pt=10 dBm
IRS-NOMA, Pt=5 dBm
IRS-OFDMA, Pt=10 dBm
10 16
8 UE1-proposed algorithm 14
UE2-proposed algorithm
6 UE1-OFDMA
UE2-OFDMA 12
4
2 10

0 8
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Tansmission power (dBm) The number of IRS elements

Figure 5 Comparison between IRS-NOMA and IRS-OFDMA for all users, Figure 7 Data rate of the strong user versus the number of IRS elements
M = 4, N = 10
18

Data rate of the strong user (bit∙s−1∙Hz−1)

22 17
Data rate of the strong user (bit∙s−1∙Hz−1)

20 16
15
18
14
16 Optimized with proposed algorithm, Pt=10 dBm 13
Optimized with proposed algorithm, Pt=5 dBm
IRS-OFDMA, Pt=10 dBm 12 UAV assisted IRS-NOMA, Pt=0 dBm
14 IRS-OFDMA, Pt=5 dBm UAV assisted IRS-OFDMA, Pt=0 dBm
11 UAV assisted IRS-NOMA, Pt=5 dBm
UAV assisted IRS-OFDMA, Pt=5 dBm
12 10
9
10
8
15 20 25 26.928 30 35 40
8
4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 BS-UAV horizontal distance (m)
The number of antennas on BS
Figure 8 Data rate of the strong user versus BS-UAV horizontal distance
Figure 6 Data rate of the strong user versus the number of antennas on BS
are passive. This means increasing IRS elements to improve
because that the SCA based algorithm is to use the first-order rate performance is a great energy-saving scheme.
Taylor expansion to do approximation, which converts a func- In Fig. 8, we compare the achievable data rate for user 1
tion to an affine function at a certain point. That becomes with different UAV positions for IRS-NOMA and IRS-
inaccurate when the power of the objective function is high. OFDMA. Here we set the number of antennas M = 4 and the
Fig. 5 illustrates the increasing trend of data rate with the number of IRS elements N = 10. As we analyzed in section
increasing transmission power for all users. The data rate III.A, the optimal horizontal position can be found when the
of each IRS-NOMA user is much higher than that of IRS- horizontal position of the UAV is located at its projection point
OFDMA user. Especially, the gap between IRS-NOMA user 2 on the line of connecting the origin point with the users’ posi-
and IRS-OFDMA user 2 becomes larger when the transmis- tions. In other words, because we set that the BS is located at
sion power increases, which indicates that applying IRS to (0, 0, 20) and users are located at (50, 0, 0) and (100, 0, 0), the
NOMA can improve the data rate for two NOMA users but optimal UAV horizontal position can be obtained when it is on
applying IRS to OFDMA can only improve that for the strong the x-axis. Hence, we set the UAV to move on the x-axis from
user significantly. The good performance benefits from the 15 meters to 40 meters to observe where the optimal position
superior performance of NOMA, i.e., allowing all users to use is. We simulate for the transmission power Pt = 0 dBm and
the same communication resources simultaneously. Pt = 5 dBm scenarios. As we expected, wherever the UAV is,
From Figs. 6 and 7, we can see that our proposed algorithm our proposed algorithm for UAV and IRS assisted NOMA al-
for UAV and IRS assisted NOMA improves the data rate dra- ways significantly outperforms the benchmark scheme. More-
matically for the strong user. Furthermore, we can find that over, we can observe that the IRS-NOMA scheme can achieve
the slopes of the curves in Fig. 7 are all bigger than those in the peak when the horizontal distance from BS to UAV is
Fig. 6. Additionally, in this paper we assume all IRS elements 26.928 m. This matches with the result calculated by (15).

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 146 Journal of Communications and Information Networks

V. C ONCLUSION λ3 r2min h2 hH
2 − λ4 IM = 0, (39)

In this paper, we first found the optimal horizontal posi- ∂L

= λ2 h1 hH H
1 + λ3 h2 h2 − λ4 IM = 0, (40)
tion of UAV, then jointly optimized beamforming vectors and ∂ Q2
IRS phase shift matrix to maximize the data rate of the strong where IM is the M × M identity matrix. The complement
user in the downlink UAV and IRS assisted MISO-NOMA slackness constraints are
system. To solve the beamforming and phase shift optimiza-
tion problem, we firstly decoupled it into two subproblems λ1 (r1min σ 2 − hH
1 Q1 h1 ) = 0, (41)
to tackle the non-convex problem. Secondly, we derived the
closed-form expression of optimal beamforming under any λ2 (r2min σ 2 + r2min hH H
1 Q1 h1 − h1 Q2 h1 ) = 0, (42)
given IRS phase shift matrix. Then we proposed the SDR λ3 (r2min σ 2 + r2min hH H
2 Q1 h2 − h2 Q2 h2 ) = 0, (43)
based iteration algorithm which has a better performance but
a higher complexity. Furthermore, we derived the SCA based λ4 (Tr(Q1 ) + Tr(Q2 ) − Pt ) = 0. (44)
algorithm which has a lower complexity. Finally, simulation Here multiplying a Q1 both sides of (39) and a Q2 both sides
results validated the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm of (40) respectively. Then we have
and showed that the UAV and IRS assisted NOMA system can
significantly improve the data rate performance. The addition 1
h1 hH H min H
1 Q1 + λ1 h1 h1 Q1 − λ2 r2 h1 h1 Q1 −
of UAV further promotes the IRS-NOMA network and pro- σ2
vide better flexibility. This is preliminary work for the UAV λ3 r2min h2 hH
2 Q1 − λ4 Q1 = 0, (45)
and IRS assisted NOMA network. More complex designs, in-
cluding UAV trajectory planning, beamforming designing and λ2 h1 hH H
1 Q2 + λ3 h2 h2 Q2 − λ4 Q2 = 0. (46)
power consumption optimization will be investigated in our
Now we have already knew that Qk = ωk ωkH , ωk 6= 0, k = 1, 2
future work.
and the SDR problem is tight as we proved in Appendix A.
Hence, (45), (46) and complement slackness (41)∼(44) can
A PPENDIX be written as
A) Proof of Proposition 1 According to Ref. [22], we know 1
h1 hH H min H
1 ω1 + λ1 h1 h1 ω1 − λ2 r2 h1 h1 ω1 −
that there exists a solution {Q∗k }, k = 1, 2 of the SDR problem σ2
(17) such that λ3 r2min h2 hH
2 ω1 − λ4 ω1 = 0, (47)
k
∑ rank2 (Q∗i ) 6 m, (37)
λ2 h1 hH H
1 ω2 + λ3 h2 h2 ω2 − λ4 ω2 = 0, (48)
i=1

where m is the number of constraints. In problem (17), m = 4 λ1 (r1min σ 2 − hH H

1 ω1 ω1 h1 ) = 0, (49)
and k = 2. Thus we have rank2 (Q∗1 ) + rank2 (Q∗2 ) 6 4. On the
λ2 (r2min σ 2 + r2min hH H H H
1 ω1 ω1 h1 − h1 ω2 ω2 h1 ) = 0, (50)
other hand, Q∗k can never be 0 to satisfy the QoS constrains, or
says Q∗k > 0. Hence, there always exists an optimal solution λ3 (r2min σ 2 + r2min hH H H H
2 ω1 ω1 h2 − h2 ω2 ω2 h2 ) = 0, (51)
such that rank(Q∗1 ) = rank(Q∗2 ) = 1.
λ4 (Tr(ω1 ω1H ) + Tr(ω2 ω2H ) − Pt ) = 0. (52)
B) Proof of Proposition 2 The Lagrangian function of the
problem (17) is Obviously, there are many combinations of λi = 0 and λi >
0, i = 1, · · · , 4. We will discuss these in the following. In this
hH1 Q1 h1 problem, according to (49), λ1 can only be 0, because λ1 > 0
L(Q1 , Q2 , λ1 , λ2 , λ3 , λ4 ) = −
σ2 means r1min σ 2 − hH H
1 ω1 ω1 h1 must be 0, so as to satisfy the
λ1 (r1min σ 2 − hH
1 Q1 h1 ) − complement slackness condition. Then ω1 is always the value
λ2 (r2min σ 2 + r2min hH H
1 Q1 h1 − h1 Q2 h1 ) − which makes the user 1’s data rate to be the minimum data
λ3 (r2min σ 2 + r2min hH H rate. Under this premise, applying (47) and (48), there are
2 Q1 h2 − h2 Q2 h2 ) −
three possible cases.
λ4 (Tr(Q1 + Q2 ) − Pt ), (38)
Case 1: λ1 = 0, λ2 > 0, λ3 > 0, λ4 = 0.
where λi > 0, i = 1, · · · , 4 are the Lagrangian multipliers. Ac- Case 2: λ1 = 0, λ2 > 0, λ3 = 0, λ4 > 0.
cording to the KKT conditions, we first let the two partial Case 3: λ1 = 0, λ2 = 0, λ3 > 0, λ4 > 0.
derivations of Q1 and Q2 equal to 1) For the case 1 of λ1 = 0, λ2 > 0, λ3 > 0, λ4 = 0. According
to (50) and (51), we obtain
∂L 1
= 2 h1 hH H min H
1 + λ1 h1 h1 − λ2 r2 h1 h1 − r2min σ 2 + r2min hH H H H
∂ Q1 σ 1 ω1 ω1 h1 − h1 ω2 ω2 h1 = 0, (53)

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 Joint Beamforming and Phase Shift Design in Downlink UAV Networks with IRS-Assisted NOMA 147

r2min σ 2 + r2min hH H H H
2 ω1 ω1 h2 − h2 ω2 ω2 h2 = 0. (54) Pt r2min hH H min 2
1 ω̃1 ω̃1 h1 − r2 σ Tr(W̃1 )
p2 = . (65)
r2min Tr(W̃2 )hH H H H
1 ω̃1 ω̃1 + Tr(W̃1 )h1 ω̃2 ω̃2 h1
Let (53) minus (54), we have
Nevertheless, the two optimal beamforming vectors are actu-
r2min hH H H H
1 ω1 ω1 h1 − h1 ω2 ω2 h1 − ally infeasible in this case, because constraint (16d) in prob-
(r2min hH H H H lem (17) can not be satisfied. Let us prove it in the following.
2 ω1 ω1 h2 − h2 ω2 ω2 h2 ) =
Rewriting (60) by applying the Sherman-Morrison equa-
hH min H H H min H H
1 (r2 ω1 ω1 − ω2 ω2 )h1 − h2 (r2 ω1 ω1 − ω2 ω2 )h2 = tion to get rid of the inverse, we have
Tr((r2min ω1 ω1H − ω2 ω2H )(h1 hH H
1 − h2 h2 )).
(IM + λλ2 r2min h1 hH −1
(55) 4 1 ) h1 Λ h1
ω̃1 = = , (66)
|(IM + λ2 min H −1 |Λ h1 |
λ4 r2 h1 h1 ) h1 |
Because of our assumption of |h1 | > |h2 |, (h1 hH H
1 − h2 h2 ) 6=
0 and based on (53) or (54), we can know that r2 ω1 ω1H −
min where
ω2 ω2H 6= 0 as well. Therefore, (55) is not 0, which means case r2 min

λ2 min
−1
hH
h hH
h1 1 1
1 cannot satisfy KKT conditions. H
Λ = IM + r2 h1 h1 = IM + 1 . (67)
2) For the case 2 of λ1 = 0, λ2 > 0, λ3 = 0, λ4 > 0. From λ4 1 + r2min
(47) and (48), we obtain
According to the constraint (16d) of problem (17), we have
1
h1 hH min H
1 ω1 − λ2 r2 h1 h1 ω1 − λ4 ω1 = 0, (56) r2min σ 2 + r2min hH H H H
2 ω1 ω1 h2 − h2 ω2 ω2 h2 =
σ2
r2min σ 2 + p1 r2min hH H H H
2 ω̃1 ω̃1 h2 − p2 h2 ω̃2 ω̃2 h2 =
λ2 h1 hH
1 ω2 − λ4 ω2 = 0. (57) 1 (Pt hH H min 2 H H
1 ω̃2 ω̃2 h1 − r2 σ Tr(W̃2 ))h2 ω1 ω1 h2
2
+1−
Therefore, we can further have σ r2 Tr(W̃2 )h1 ω̃1 ω̃1 h1 + Tr(W̃1 )h1 ω̃2 ω̃2H h1
min H H H

1 1 (Pt r2min hH H min 2 H

1 ω̃1 ω̃1 h1 + r2 σ Tr(W̃1 ))h2 ω̃2 ω̃2 h2
H
λ2
ω1 = (IM + r2min h1 hH −1
hH ω1 , =
1 ) h1 (58) r2min σ 2 r2min Tr(W̃2 )hH H H H
1 ω̃1 ω̃1 h1 + Tr(W̃1 )h1 ω̃2 ω̃2 h1
λ4 λ4 σ 2 1
Pt
σ2
(hH H H H H H H H
1 ω̃2 ω̃2 h1 h2 ω̃1 ω̃1 h2 − h1 ω̃1 ω̃1 h1 h2 ω̃2 ω̃2 h2 )
λ2 +
ω2 = h1 hH ω2 . (59) r2min Tr(W̃2 )hH H H H
1 ω̃1 ω̃1 h1 + Tr(W̃1 )h1 ω̃2 ω̃2 h1
λ4 1
rmin Tr(W̃2 )hH H H H
2 ω̃1 ω̃1 h2 + Tr(W̃1 )h2 ω̃2 ω̃2 h2 )
According to Lemma 2 of Ref. [18], here the ω1 and ω2 can 1 − 2min . (68)
be treated as the parallel vectors to (IM + λλ2 r2min h1 hH −1 r2 Tr(W̃2 )h1 ω̃1 ω̃1 h1 + Tr(W̃1 )h1 ω̃2 ω̃2H h1
H H H
1 ) h1
4
and h1 , respectively. Since λ 1σ 2 hH λ2 H
1 ω1 and λ4 h1 ω2 are both
For the numerator of the first term in (68), we have
4
scalars, the optimal beamforming vectors can be represented h1 hH hH Λ H
hH H Λ h1
1 |h | |hH | h1 h2 |Λ h | |hH Λ H | h2 −
1 1
as the form of amplitude multiply by the normalized beam- 1 1
√ √ 1 1
forming directions ω1 = p1 ω̃1 and ω2 = p2 ω̃2 , where Λ h1 h1 Λ
H H
H h1 h1
H
hH
1 |Λ h1 | |hH Λ H | h1 h2 |h1 | |hH | h2 =
1 1
(IM + λλ2 r2min h1 hH −1
1 ) h1
1
ω̃1 = 4
, (60) |h1 |2 |Λ h1 |2
|(IM + λλ2 r2min h1 hH −1
1 ) h1 | (hH H H H H H
4 1 h1 h1 h1 h2 (IM + Ah1 h1 )h1 h1 (IM + Ah1 h1 )h2 −

h1 hH H H H H
1 (IM + Ah1 h1 )h1 h1 (IM + Ah1 h1 )h1 h2 h1 h1 h2 ) =
H
ω̃2 = , (61) 1
|h1 | |h1 |2 |Λ h1 |2

and λ2
= 1
which can be obtained from (56) and (57). In (|h1 |4 (hH H 2 H H
2 h1 + Ah2 h1 |h1 | )(h1 h2 + Ah1 h2 |h1 | ) −
2
λ4 hH
1 h1
this case (i.e., λ1 = 0, λ2 > 0, λ3 = 0, λ4 > 0), and according (|h1 |2 + A|h1 |4 )(|h1 |2 + A|h1 |4 )hH H
2 h1 h1 h2 ), (69)
to (50) and (52), we have r2min
where A = h1 h1 (1+r2min )
H . Let |h1 |2 = α, hH
2 h1 = β and
r2min σ 2 + r2min p1 hH H H H
1 ω̃1 ω̃1 h1 − p2 h1 ω̃2 ω̃2 h1 = 0, (62) hH
1 h2 = γ, then we have

p1 Tr(W̃1 ) + p2 Tr(W̃2 ) − Pt = 0, (63) α 2 (β + Aβ α)(γ + Aγα) − (α + Aα 2 )(α + Aα 2 )β γ =

where W̃i = ω̃i ω̃iH , i = 1, 2. Then, we can obtain the optimal α 2 β γ + 2Aβ γα 3 + Aβ γα 4 − α 2 β γ − 2Aβ γα 3 − Aβ γα 4 = 0.
power p1 and p2 as (70)

Pt hH H min 2
1 ω̃2 ω̃2 h1 − r2 σ Tr(W̃2 ) Hence the first term of (68) is zero. Due to our assumption of
p1 = , (64)
r2min Tr(W̃2 )hH H H H
1 ω̃1 ω̃1 + Tr(W̃1 )h1 ω̃2 ω̃2 h1
|h1 | > |h2 |, we can easily find that the last term of (68) is less

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 148 Journal of Communications and Information Networks

∗ ∗H
than 1. Thus (68) is greater than zero, which is contradictory hH
1 ω2 ω2 h1 =
to our constraint (16d). This case is infeasible. [Pt r2min hH H min 2 H H (82)
2 ω̃1 ω̃2 h2 + r2 σ Tr(W̃1 )]h1 ω̃2 ω̃2 h1
3) For the case 3 of λ1 = 0, λ2 = 0, λ3 > 0, λ4 > 0. According .
r2min Tr(W̃2 )hH H H H
2 ω̃1 ω̃1 h2 + Tr(W̃1 )h2 ω̃2 ω̃2 h2
to (47) and (48), we have
Then applying (19), (20) and Tr(ω̃k ω̃kH ) = ω̃kH ω̃k , (81) and
1 (82) become
h1 hH min H
1 ω1 − λ3 r2 h2 h2 ω1 − λ4 ω1 = 0, (71)
σ2
∗ ∗H Pt |h2 |2 |hH H 2 min 2 H H
1 Λ h1 | − r2 σ |h1 Λ h1 |
2

λ3 h2 hH hH
1 ω1 ω1 h1 = ,
2 ω2 − λ4 ω4 = 0. (72) r2min |hH H 2 H 2
1 Λ h2 | + |Λ h1 | |h2 |
2

Then we can have (83)

(P r min |hH ΛH h |2 + r min σ 2 |Λh |2 )|hH h |2
∗ ∗H t 2 1 1 2
λ3 min 1 hH
1 ω2 ω2 h1 =
2
min
1
H
2
,
ω1 = (IM + r h2 hH −1
hH ω1 , r2 |h2 | |h1 Λ h2 | + |Λh1 | |h2 |4
2 H 2 2
2 ) h1 (73)
λ4 2 λ4 σ 2 1 (84)
where
λ3 H
ω2 = h2
h ω2 . (74) min
λ4 2 −1 r2
h hH
h2 2 2

λ2 min H hH
Again according to the Lemma 2 of Ref. [18], we know that Λ = IM + r2 h2 h2 = IM + 2 .
−1
λ4 1 + r2min
the optimal ω1 is parallel to (IM + λλ 3 r2min h2 hH
2 ) h1 and
4
the optimal ω2 is parallel to h2 . Because ( λ 1σ 2 hH After some manipulating, we can derive (24) and (25). The
1 ω1 ) and
λ3 H
4 proof is completed.
λ4 h2 ω2 can be both treated as salars, we can represent the
beamforming vector again as the form of amplitude multi-
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A BOUT THE AUTHORS
Shiyu Jiao received his B.E. degree in communication
engineering from Henan University in 2017, and his
M.S degree in communication engineering from the
University of Manchester, respectively. He is currently
working towards his Ph.D. degree in electrical and
electronic at the School of Electrical and Electronic
Engineering, the University of Manchester, Manch-
ester, UK. His currently research interests include 5G
and beyond wireless networks, NOMA, UAV, IRS, op-
timization and machine learning.
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149
Fang Fang received her B.A.Sc. and M.A.Sc. degrees
in electronic engineering from Lanzhou University in
2010 and 2013, respectively, and her Ph.D. degree in
electrical engineering from the University of British
Columbia (UBC), Kelowna, BC, Canada, in 2018. She
is currently a research associate with the Department
of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, the Univer-
sity of Manchester, UK. Her current research interests
include 5G and beyond wireless networks, NOMA,
IRS and mobile edge computing. She has served as a TPC member for IEEE
conferences, e.g., GLOBECOM and ICC. She received the Exemplary Re-
viewer Certificate of IEEE Transactions on Communications in 2017. She is
currently an associate editor of IEEE Open Journal of the Communications
Society.
Xiaotian Zhou [corresponding author] received his
B.E. degree in electronic information engineering and
his Ph.D. degree in communication and information
systems from Shandong University, China, in 2007
and 2013, respectively. He is currently an associate
professor with the School of Control Science and
Engineering, Shandong University. His research in-
terests include 5G/B5G wireless communication net-
works, non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), mas-
sive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), and mobile edge computing
(MEC). He is currently an associate editor of IET Communications.
Haixia Zhang received her B.E. degree from Guilin
University of Electronic Technology, China, in 2001,
and her M.Eng. and Ph.D. degrees in communication
and information systems from Shandong University,
China, in 2004 and 2008, respectively. From 2006 to
2008, she was an academic assistant with the Institute
for Circuit and Signal Processing, Munich University
of Technology. From 2016 to 2017, she was a visit-
ing professor with the University of Florida, USA. She
is currently a full professor with Shandong University. Her current research
interests include cooperative (relay) communications, resource management,
space time process techniques, mobile edge computing and smart communi-
cation technologies. She has been actively participating in many academic
events, serving as TPC members, session chairs, and giving invited talks for
conferences. She is an associate editor for International Journal of Commu-
nication Systems and IEEE Wireless Communications Letters.