Data-aided Active User Detection with a User Activity Extraction Network for Grant-free SCMA Systems

In grant-free sparse code multiple access system, joint optimization of contention resources for users and active user detection (AUD) at the receiver is a complex combinatorial problem. To this end, we propose a deep learning-based data-aided AUD scheme which extracts a priori user activity information via a novel user activity extraction network (UAEN). This is enabled by an end-to-end training of an autoencoder (AE), which simultaneously optimizes the contention resources, i.e., preamble sequences, each associated with one of the codebooks, and extraction of user activity information from both preamble and data transmission. Furthermore, we propose self-supervised pre-training scheme for the UAEN, which ensures the convergence of offline end-to-end training. Simulation results demonstrated that the proposed AUD scheme achieved 3 to 5dB gain at a target activity detection error rate of ${{10}^{-3}}$ compared to the state-of-the-art DL-based AUD schemes.