Fronthaul-Constrained Cloud Radio Access Networks: Insights and Challenges

As a promising paradigm for fifth generation (5G) wireless communication systems, cloud radio access networks (C-RANs) have been shown to reduce both capital and operating expenditures, as well as to provide high spectral efficiency (SE) and energy efficiency (EE). The fronthaul in such networks, defined as the transmission link between a baseband unit (BBU) and a remote radio head (RRH), requires high capacity, but is often constrained. This article comprehensively surveys recent advances in fronthaul-constrained C-RANs, including system architectures and key techniques. In particular, key techniques for alleviating the impact of constrained fronthaul on SE/EE and quality of service for users, including compression and quantization, large-scale coordinated processing and clustering, and resource allocation optimization, are discussed. Open issues in terms of software-defined networking, network function virtualization, and partial centralization are also identified.Comment: 5 Figures, accepted by IEEE Wireless Communications. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1407.3855 by other author

MSE minimized joint transmission in coordinated multipoint systems with sparse feedback and constrained backhaul requirements

In a joint transmission coordinated multipoint (JT-CoMP) system, a shared spectrum is utilized by all neighbor cells. In the downlink, a group of base stations (BSs) coordinately transmit the users’ data to avoid serious interference at the users in the boundary of the cells, thus substantially improving area fairness. However, this comes at the cost of high feedback and backhaul load; In a frequency division duplex system, all users at the cell boundaries have to collect and send feedback of the downlink channel state information (CSI). In centralized JT-CoMP, although with capabilities for perfect coordination, a central coordination node have to send the computed precoding weights and corresponding data to all cells which can overwhelm the backhaul resources. In this paper, we design a JT-CoMP scheme, by which the sum of the mean square error (MSE) at the boundary users is minimized, while feedback and backhaul loads are constrained and the load is balanced between BSs. Our design is based on the singular value decomposition of CSI matrix and optimization of a binary link selection matrix to provide sparse feedback—constrained backhaul link. For comparison, we adopt the previously presented schemes for feedback and backhaul reduction in the physical layer. Extensive numerical evaluations show that the proposed scheme can reduce the MSE with at least 25 % , compared to the adopted and existing schemes

On Linear Transmission Systems

This thesis is divided into two parts. Part I analyzes the information rate of single antenna, single carrier linear modulation systems. The information rate of a system is the maximum number of bits that can be transmitted during a channel usage, and is achieved by Gaussian symbols. It depends on the underlying pulse shape in a linear modulated signal and also the signaling rate, the rate at which the Gaussian symbols are transmitted. The object in Part I is to study the impact of both the signaling rate and the pulse shape on the information rate. Part II of the thesis is devoted to multiple antenna systems (MIMO), and more specifically to linear precoders for MIMO channels. Linear precoding is a practical scheme for improving the performance of a MIMO system, and has been studied intensively during the last four decades. In practical applications, the symbols to be transmitted are taken from a discrete alphabet, such as quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), and it is of interest to find the optimal linear precoder for a certain performance measure of the MIMO channel. The design problem depends on the particular performance measure and the receiver structure. The main difficulty in finding the optimal precoders is the discrete nature of the problem, and mostly suboptimal solutions are proposed. The problem has been well investigated when linear receivers are employed, for which optimal precoders were found for many different performance measures. However, in the case of the optimal maximum likelihood (ML) receiver, only suboptimal constructions have been possible so far. Part II starts by proposing new novel, low complexity, suboptimal precoders, which provide a low bit error rate (BER) at the receiver. Later, an iterative optimization method is developed, which produces precoders improving upon the best known ones in the literature. The resulting precoders turn out to exhibit a certain structure, which is then analyzed and proved to be optimal for large alphabets