UAV Relay-Assisted NOMA MEC in IoT Networks: Offloading Performance and Optimization

This paper investigated how unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can enhance nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA) mobile-edge computing (MEC) in the Internet of Things (IoT) by acting as relay stations for ground base stations (BSs). We derived closed-form formulations for Successful Computation Probability (SCP) in accordance with Nakagami-m fading modeled for assessing system effectiveness. Furthermore, we provided a SCP maximization problem that improved UAV deployment location using the particle swarm optimization (PSO) method. Finally, numerical results demonstrated that parameters such as UAV’s transmit signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), edge devices (EDs)’ number, antennas of BS, and UAV deployment location significantly impacted system offload performance, which is confirmed by Monte Carlo simulations.