AFDM-based PD-NOMA for Terahertz Channels

Abstract

The growing demand for highly reliable, high throughput wireless communication in next-generation networks has spurred the exploration of advanced modulation and multiple access techniques. Affine Frequency Division Multiplexing (AFDM) offers strong robustness against time frequency dispersion, ensuring reliable transmission over doubly dispersive channels (DDCs), while Power-Domain Non Orthogonal Multiple Access (PD-NOMA) enhances spectral efficiency by enabling multiple users to share the same frequency resources with different power levels. This paper investigates a unified AFDM-based PD-NOMA framework that combines AFDM’s resilience to multipath and Doppler effects with PD-NOMA’s efficient spectrum utilization for Terahertz (THz) communication. Performance analysis over THz channels—characterized by ultra-wide bandwidth and support for extremely high data rates—demonstrates that the proposed system can provide massive connectivity along with improved Bit Error Rate (BER) performance and enhanced spectral efficiency, making it a strong candidate for future 6G wireless networks.