Adapting downlink power in fronthaul-constrained hierarchical software-defined RANs

Abstract The proof-of-concept software-defined radio access network (RAN) is not flexible enough due to the inherent delay and the necessity of high-capacity fronthaul links. We are hence motivated to propose a hierarchical software-defined RAN architecture, over which the base stations (BSs) are abstracted into multiple virtual local controllers while these local controllers are administered by a high-level controller. Under such a hierarchical network architecture, we particularly investigate in this paper how to adapt the BS transmit power over a long term according to the network dynamics under the constraints of mobile user queue stability and limited fronthaul capacity. We first formulate an off-line stochastic power adaptation problem. Through developing the Lyapunov method, we transform the problem into an approximate on-line optimization task. However, the challenge arises from the introduced per-cluster fronthaul capacity constraint. To solve the task efficiently and avoid extensive information exchange between the high-level controller and the local controllers, we put forward a novel low-complexity algorithm by designing a non- cooperative power adaptation game among the local controllers. Simulations are provided to evaluate the efficacy of the proposed studies