The ambitious high data-rate applications in the envisioned future beyond fifth-generation (B5G) wireless networks require new solutions, including the advent of more advanced architectures than the ones already used in 5G networks, and the coalition of different communications schemes and technologies to enable these applications requirements. Among the candidate communications schemes for future wireless networks are non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) schemes that allow serving more than one user in the same resource block by multiplexing users in other domains than frequency or time. In this way, NOMA schemes tend to offer several advantages over orthogonal multiple access (OMA) schemes such as improved user fairness and spectral efficiency, higher cell-edge throughput, massive connectivity support, and low transmission latency. With these merits, NOMA-enabled transmission schemes are being increasingly looked at as promising multiple access schemes for future wireless networks. When the power domain is used to multiplex the users, it is referred to as the power domain NOMA (PD-NOMA). In this paper, we survey the integration of PD-NOMA with the enabling communications schemes and technologies that are expected to meet the various requirements of B5G networks. In particular, this paper surveys the different rate optimization scenarios studied in the literature when PD-NOMA is combined with one or more of the candidate schemes and technologies for B5G networks including multiple-input-single-output (MISO), multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO), massive-MIMO (mMIMO), advanced antenna architectures, higher frequency millimeter-wave (mmWave) and terahertz (THz) communications, advanced coordinated multi-point (CoMP) transmission and reception schemes, cooperative communications, cognitive radio (CR), visible light communications (VLC), unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) assisted communications and others. The considered system models, the optimization methods utilized to maximize the achievable rates, and the main lessons learnt on the optimization and the performance of these NOMA-enabled schemes and technologies are discussed in detail along with the future research directions for these combined schemes. Moreover, the role of machine learning in optimizing these NOMA-enabled technologies is addressed.

Security and latency are crucial aspects in the design of future wireless networks. Physical layer security (PLS) has received a growing interest from the research community in recent years for its ability to safeguard data confidentiality without relying on key distribution or encryption/decryption, and for its latency advantage over bit-level cryptographic techniques. However, the evolution towards the fifth generation (5G) technology and beyond poses new security challenges that must be addressed in order to fulfill the unprecedented performance requirements of future wireless communication networks. Among the potential key-enabling technologies, reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) has attracted extensive attention due to its ability to proactively and intelligently reconfigure the wireless propagation environment to combat dynamic wireless channel impairments. Consequently, the RIS technology can be adopted to improve the information-theoretic security of both radio frequency (RF) and optical wireless communications (OWC) systems. It is worth noting that the configuration of RIS in RF communications is different from the one in optical systems at many levels (e.g., RIS materials, signal characteristics, and functionalities). This survey paper provides a comprehensive overview of the information-theoretic security of RIS-based RF and optical systems. The article first discusses the fundamental concepts of PLS and RIS technologies, followed by their combination in both RF and OWC systems. Subsequently, some optimization techniques are presented in the context of the underlying system model, followed by an assessment of the impact of RIS-assisted PLS through a comprehensive performance analysis. Given that the computational complexity of future communication systems that adopt RIS-assisted PLS is likely to increase rapidly as the number of interactions between the users and infrastructure grows, machine learning (ML) is seen as a promising approach to address this complexity issue while sustaining or improving the network performance. A discussion of recent research studies on RIS-assisted PLS-based systems embedded with ML is presented. Furthermore, some important open research challenges are proposed and discussed to provide insightful future research directions, with the aim of moving a step closer towards the development and implementation of the forthcoming sixth-generation (6G) wireless technology.

Visible light communication (VLC) builds upon the dual use of existing lighting infrastructure for wireless data transmission. VLC has recently gained interest as cost-effective, secure, and energy-efficient wireless access technology particularly for indoor user-dense environments. While initial studies in this area are mainly limited to single-user point-to-point links, more recent efforts have focused on multi-user VLC systems in an effort to transform VLC into a scalable and fully networked wireless technology. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive overview of multi-user VLC systems discussing the recent advances on multi-user precoding, multiple access, resource allocation, and mobility management. We further provide possible directions of future research in this emerging topic.

A critical concern within the realm of visible light communications (VLC) pertains to enhancing system data rate, particularly in scenarios where the direct line-of-sight (LoS) connection is obstructed by obstacles. The deployment of meta-surface-based simultaneous transmission and reflection reconfigurable intelligent surface (STAR-RIS) has emerged to combat challenging LoS blockage scenarios and to provide 360∘ coverage in radio-frequency wireless systems. Recently, the concept of optical simultaneous transmission and reflection reconfigurable intelligent surface (OSTAR-RIS) has been promoted for VLC systems. This work is dedicated to studying the performance of OSTAR-RIS in detail and unveiling the VLC system performance gain under such technology. Specifically, we propose a novel multi-user indoor VLC system that is assisted by OSTAR-RIS. To improve the sum rate performance of the proposed system, both power-domain non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) and rate splitting multiple access (RSMA) are investigated in this work. To realize this, a sum rate maximization problem that jointly optimizes the roll and yaw angles of the reflector elements as well as the refractive index of the refractor elements in OSTAR-RIS is formulated, solved, and evaluated. The maximization problem takes into account practical considerations, such as the presence of non-users (i.e., blockers) and the orientation of the recipient’s device. The sine-cosine meta-heuristic algorithm is employed to get the optimal solution of the formulated non-convex optimization problem. Moreover, the study delves into the sum energy efficiency optimization of the proposed system. Simulation results indicate that the proposed OSTAR-RIS RSMA-aided VLC system outperforms the OSTAR-RIS NOMA-based VLC system in terms of both the sum rate and the sum energy efficiency.

Most studies of reflecting intelligent surfaces (RISs)-assisted visible light communication (VLC) systems have focused on the integration of RISs in the channel between the transmitter-receiver pair to combat the line-of-sight (LoS) blockage issue and to enhance the corresponding achievable data rate. Some recent efforts have investigated the integration of liquid crystal (LC)-RIS in the VLC receiver to also improve the corresponding achievable data rate. To jointly benefit from the previously mentioned appealing capabilities of the RIS technology in both the channel and the receiver, in this work, we propose a novel indoor VLC system that is jointly assisted by a mirror array-based RIS in the channel and an LC-based RIS aided-VLC receiver. To illustrate the performance of the proposed system, a rate maximization problem is formulated, solved, and evaluated for the proposed system. This maximization problem jointly optimizes the roll and yaw angles of the mirror array-based RIS as well as the refractive index of the LC-based RIS VLC receiver. Moreover, this maximization problem considers practical assumptions, such as the presence of non-users blockers in the LoS path between the transmitter and the receiver and the user's random device orientation (i.e., the user's self-blockage). Due to the non-convexity of the formulated multi-variate optimization problem, a low-complexity algorithm is utilized to get the global optimal solution. A multi-user scenario of the proposed scheme is also presented. Furthermore, the energy efficiency of the proposed system is also investigated. Simulation results are provided, confirming that the proposed system yields a noteworthy improvement in data rate and energy efficiency performances compared to several baseline schemes.

This paper proposes a millimeter wave-NOMA (mmWave-NOMA) system that takes into account the end-user signal processing capabilities, an important practical consideration. The implementation of NOMA in the downlink (DL) direction requires successive interference cancellation (SIC) to be performed at the user terminals, which comes at the cost of additional complexity. In NOMA, the weakest user only has to decode its own signal, while the strongest user has to decode the signals of all other users in the SIC procedure. Hence, the additional implementation complexity required of the user to perform SIC for DL NOMA depends on its position in the SIC decoding order. Beyond fifth-generation (B5G) communication systems are expected to support a wide variety of end-user devices, each with their own processing capabilities. We envision a system where users report their SIC decoding capability to the base station (BS), i.e., the number of other users signals a user is capable of decoding in the SIC procedure. We investigate the rate maximization problem in such a system, by breaking it down into a user clustering and ordering problem (UCOP), followed by a power allocation problem. We propose a NOMA-minimum exact cover (NOMA-MEC) heuristic algorithm that converts the UCOP into a cluster minimization problem from a derived set of valid cluster combinations after factoring in the SIC decoding capability. The complexity of NOMA-MEC is analyzed for various algorithm and system parameters. For a homogeneous system of users that all have the same decoding capabilities, we show that this equates to a simple maximum number of users per cluster constraint and propose a lower complexity NOMA-best beam (NOMA-BB) algorithm. Simulation results demonstrate the performance superiority in terms of sum rate compared to orthogonal multiple access (OMA) and traditional NOMA clustering schemes that do not incorporate individual users’ SIC decoding capability constraints.