  Fifth generation (5G) wireless networks are expected to support very diverse
applications and terminals. Massive connectivity with a large number of devices
is an important requirement for 5G networks. Current LTE system is not able to
efficiently support massive connectivity, especially on the uplink (UL). Among
the issues arise due to massive connectivity is the cost of signaling overhead
and latency. In this paper, an uplink contention-based sparse code multiple
access (SCMA) design is proposed as a solution. First, the system design
aspects of the proposed multiple-access scheme are described. The SCMA
parameters can be adjusted to provide different levels of overloading, thus
suitable to meet the diverse traffic connectivity requirements. In addition,
the system-level evaluations of a small packet application scenario are
provided for contention-based UL SCMA. SCMA is compared to OFDMA in terms of
connectivity and drop rate under a tight latency requirement. The simulation
results demonstrate that contention-based SCMA can provide around 2.8 times
gain over contention-based OFDMA in terms of supported active users. The uplink
contention-based SCMA scheme can be a promising technology for 5G wireless
networks for data transmission with low signaling overhead, low delay, and
support of massive connectivity.
