Performance Analysis of IOS-Assisted NOMA System with Channel Correlation and Phase Errors

In this paper, we investigate the performance of an intelligent omni-surface (IOS) assisted downlink non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) network with phase quantization errors and channel estimation errors, where the channels related to the IOS are spatially correlated. First, upper bounds on the average achievable rates of the two users are derived. Then, channel hardening is shown to occur in the proposed system, based on which we derive approximations of the average achievable rates of the two users. The analytical results illustrate that the proposed upper bound and approximation on the average achievable rate of the strong user are asymptotically equivalent in the number of elements. Furthermore, it is proved that the average achievable rates with correlated and uncorrelated channels are asymptotically equivalent for a large number of elements. Simulation results corroborate the theoretical analysis and show that the channel hardening effect appears even for a few elements. The impact of channel correlation on the system performance in terms of average achievable rates is negligible for a large number of elements.