Delay Minimization for Hybrid BAC-NOMA Offloading in MEC Networks

Abstract: This paper studies the offloading service improvement of multi-access edge computing (MEC) based on backscatter communication (BackCom) assisted non-orthogonal multiple access (BAC-NOMA). A hybrid BAC-NOMA protocol is proposed, where the uplink users backscatter their tasks by leveraging the downlink signal, and then the remaining data is transmitted through uplink NOMA. In particular, a resource allocation problem is formulated to minimize the offloading delay of uplink users. The non-convex problem is transformed into a convex problem, and an iterative algorithm is developed accordingly. Simulation results show that the proposed protocol outperforms the benchmark in terms of offloading delay.