Renewable energy (RE)-powered base stations (BSs) have been considered as an attractive solution to address the exponential increasing energy demand in cellular networks while decreasing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. For the regions where reliable power grids are insufficient and infeasible to deploy, such as aerial platforms and harsh environments, RE has been an alternative power source for BSs. In this survey paper, we provide an overview of RE-enabled cellular networks, detailing their analysis, classification, and related works. First, we introduce the key components of RE-powered BSs along with their frequently adopted models. Second, we analyze the proposed strategies and design issues for RE-powered BSs that can be incorporated into cellular networks and categorize them into several groups to provide a good grasp. Third, we introduce feasibility studies on RE-powered BSs based on the recent literature. Fourth, we investigate RE-powered network components other than terrestrial BSs to address potential issues regarding RE-enabled networks. Finally, we suggest future research directions and conclusions.

This paper presents the design and bit error rate (BER) analysis of a phase-independent non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) system. The proposed NOMA system can utilize amplitude-coherent detection (ACD) which requires only the channel amplitude for equalization purposes. In what follows, three different designs for realizing the detection of the proposed NOMA are investigated. One is based on the maximum likelihood (ML) principle, while the other two are based on successive interference cancellation (SIC). Closed-form expressions for the BER of all detectors are derived and compared with the BER of the coherent ML detector. The obtained results, which are corroborated by simulations, demonstrate that, in most scenarios, the BER is dominated by multiuser interference rather than the absence of the channel phase information. Consequently, the BER using ML and ACD are comparable for various cases of interest. The paper also shows that the SIC detector is just an alternative approach to realize the ML detector, and hence, both detectors provide the same BER performance.

The proliferation of ubiquitous computing applications created a multi-dimensional optimization problem that includes several conflicting variables such as spectral efficiency, complexity, power consumption, delay, and error probability. To relax the problem and provide efficient solutions, it was necessary to augment the currently overutilized radio spectrum with new frequency bands such as the optical spectrum, which can be used to off-load some of the traffic of certain applications. Therefore, this paper presents an efficient system design that uses amplitude-coherent (AC) detection to reduce OWC system’s complexity, improve its reliability and spectral efficiency. More specifically, we use amplitude shift keying with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) at the transmitter, and AC detection at the receiver. The complexity reduction is achieved by using a low complexity detector, channel estimator, and peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) reduction scheme. The spectral efficiency is achieved by using real data symbols with discrete cosine transform (DCT), which requires a subcarrier spacing that is 50% of the discrete Fourier transform (DFT), and does not require Hermitian symmetry to generate real-valued OFDM signals. Moreover, the derived channel estimator is blind, and the PAPR reduction scheme does not require a feedback overhead between the transmitter and receiver.