1,084 research outputs found
Green Cellular Networks: A Survey, Some Research Issues and Challenges
Energy efficiency in cellular networks is a growing concern for cellular
operators to not only maintain profitability, but also to reduce the overall
environment effects. This emerging trend of achieving energy efficiency in
cellular networks is motivating the standardization authorities and network
operators to continuously explore future technologies in order to bring
improvements in the entire network infrastructure. In this article, we present
a brief survey of methods to improve the power efficiency of cellular networks,
explore some research issues and challenges and suggest some techniques to
enable an energy efficient or "green" cellular network. Since base stations
consume a maximum portion of the total energy used in a cellular system, we
will first provide a comprehensive survey on techniques to obtain energy
savings in base stations. Next, we discuss how heterogeneous network deployment
based on micro, pico and femto-cells can be used to achieve this goal. Since
cognitive radio and cooperative relaying are undisputed future technologies in
this regard, we propose a research vision to make these technologies more
energy efficient. Lastly, we explore some broader perspectives in realizing a
"green" cellular network technologyComment: 16 pages, 5 figures, 2 table
Separation Framework: An Enabler for Cooperative and D2D Communication for Future 5G Networks
Soaring capacity and coverage demands dictate that future cellular networks
need to soon migrate towards ultra-dense networks. However, network
densification comes with a host of challenges that include compromised energy
efficiency, complex interference management, cumbersome mobility management,
burdensome signaling overheads and higher backhaul costs. Interestingly, most
of the problems, that beleaguer network densification, stem from legacy
networks' one common feature i.e., tight coupling between the control and data
planes regardless of their degree of heterogeneity and cell density.
Consequently, in wake of 5G, control and data planes separation architecture
(SARC) has recently been conceived as a promising paradigm that has potential
to address most of aforementioned challenges. In this article, we review
various proposals that have been presented in literature so far to enable SARC.
More specifically, we analyze how and to what degree various SARC proposals
address the four main challenges in network densification namely: energy
efficiency, system level capacity maximization, interference management and
mobility management. We then focus on two salient features of future cellular
networks that have not yet been adapted in legacy networks at wide scale and
thus remain a hallmark of 5G, i.e., coordinated multipoint (CoMP), and
device-to-device (D2D) communications. After providing necessary background on
CoMP and D2D, we analyze how SARC can particularly act as a major enabler for
CoMP and D2D in context of 5G. This article thus serves as both a tutorial as
well as an up to date survey on SARC, CoMP and D2D. Most importantly, the
article provides an extensive outlook of challenges and opportunities that lie
at the crossroads of these three mutually entangled emerging technologies.Comment: 28 pages, 11 figures, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials 201
Will SDN be part of 5G?
For many, this is no longer a valid question and the case is considered
settled with SDN/NFV (Software Defined Networking/Network Function
Virtualization) providing the inevitable innovation enablers solving many
outstanding management issues regarding 5G. However, given the monumental task
of softwarization of radio access network (RAN) while 5G is just around the
corner and some companies have started unveiling their 5G equipment already,
the concern is very realistic that we may only see some point solutions
involving SDN technology instead of a fully SDN-enabled RAN. This survey paper
identifies all important obstacles in the way and looks at the state of the art
of the relevant solutions. This survey is different from the previous surveys
on SDN-based RAN as it focuses on the salient problems and discusses solutions
proposed within and outside SDN literature. Our main focus is on fronthaul,
backward compatibility, supposedly disruptive nature of SDN deployment,
business cases and monetization of SDN related upgrades, latency of general
purpose processors (GPP), and additional security vulnerabilities,
softwarization brings along to the RAN. We have also provided a summary of the
architectural developments in SDN-based RAN landscape as not all work can be
covered under the focused issues. This paper provides a comprehensive survey on
the state of the art of SDN-based RAN and clearly points out the gaps in the
technology.Comment: 33 pages, 10 figure
Quantifying Potential Energy Efficiency Gain in Green Cellular Wireless Networks
Conventional cellular wireless networks were designed with the purpose of
providing high throughput for the user and high capacity for the service
provider, without any provisions of energy efficiency. As a result, these
networks have an enormous Carbon footprint. In this paper, we describe the
sources of the inefficiencies in such networks. First we present results of the
studies on how much Carbon footprint such networks generate. We also discuss
how much more mobile traffic is expected to increase so that this Carbon
footprint will even increase tremendously more. We then discuss specific
sources of inefficiency and potential sources of improvement at the physical
layer as well as at higher layers of the communication protocol hierarchy. In
particular, considering that most of the energy inefficiency in cellular
wireless networks is at the base stations, we discuss multi-tier networks and
point to the potential of exploiting mobility patterns in order to use base
station energy judiciously. We then investigate potential methods to reduce
this inefficiency and quantify their individual contributions. By a
consideration of the combination of all potential gains, we conclude that an
improvement in energy consumption in cellular wireless networks by two orders
of magnitude, or even more, is possible.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1210.843
Self-Sustaining Caching Stations: Towards Cost-Effective 5G-Enabled Vehicular Networks
In this article, we investigate the cost-effective 5G-enabled vehicular
networks to support emerging vehicular applications, such as autonomous
driving, in-car infotainment and location-based road services. To this end,
self-sustaining caching stations (SCSs) are introduced to liberate on-road base
stations from the constraints of power lines and wired backhauls. Specifically,
the cache-enabled SCSs are powered by renewable energy and connected to core
networks through wireless backhauls, which can realize "drop-and-play"
deployment, green operation, and low-latency services. With SCSs integrated, a
5G-enabled heterogeneous vehicular networking architecture is further proposed,
where SCSs are deployed along roadside for traffic offloading while
conventional macro base stations (MBSs) provide ubiquitous coverage to
vehicles. In addition, a hierarchical network management framework is designed
to deal with high dynamics in vehicular traffic and renewable energy, where
content caching, energy management and traffic steering are jointly
investigated to optimize the service capability of SCSs with balanced power
demand and supply in different time scales. Case studies are provided to
illustrate SCS deployment and operation designs, and some open research issues
are also discussed.Comment: IEEE Communications Magazine, to appea
Traffic-Driven Energy Efficient Operational Mechanisms in Cellular Access Networks
Recent explosive growth in mobile data traffic is increasing energy consumption in cellular networks at an incredible rate. Moreover, as a direct result of the conventional static network provisioning approach, a significant amount of electrical energy is being wasted in the existing networks. Therefore, in recent time, the issue of designing energy efficient cellular networks has drawn significant attention, which is also the foremost motivation behind this research. The proposed research is particularly focused on the design of self-organizing type traffic-sensitive dynamic network reconfiguring mechanisms for energy efficiency in cellular systems. Under the proposed techniques, radio access networks (RANs) are adaptively reconfigured using less equipment leading to reduced energy utilization. Several energy efficient cellular network frameworks by employing inter-base station (BS) cooperation in RANs are proposed. Under these frameworks, based on the instantaneous traffic demand, BSs are dynamically switched between active and sleep modes by redistributing traffic among them and thus, energy savings is achieved. The focus is then extended to exploiting the availability of multiple cellular networks for extracting energy savings through inter-RAN cooperation. Mathematical models for both of these single-RAN and multi-RAN cooperation mechanisms are also formulated. An alternative energy saving technique using dynamic sectorization (DS) under which some of the sectors in the underutilized BSs are turned into sleep mode is also proposed. Algorithms for both the distributed and the centralized implementations are developed. Finally, a two-dimensional energy efficient network provisioning mechanism is proposed by jointly applying both the DS and the dynamic BS switching. Extensive simulations are carried out, which demonstrate the capability of the proposed mechanisms in substantially enhancing the energy efficiency of cellular networks
Energy Efficiency and Coverage Trade-Off in 5G for Eco-Friendly and Sustainable Cellular Networks
Recently, cellular networks’ energy efficiency has garnered research interest from academia
and industry because of its considerable economic and ecological effects in the near future. This study
proposes an approach to cooperation between the Long-Term Evolution (LTE) and next-generation
wireless networks. The fifth-generation (5G) wireless network aims to negotiate a trade-off between
wireless network performance (sustaining the demand for high speed packet rates during busy traffic
periods) and energy efficiency (EE) by alternating 5G base stations’ (BSs) switching off/on based
on the traffic instantaneous load condition and, at the same time, guaranteeing network coverage
for mobile subscribers by the remaining active LTE BSs. The particle swarm optimization (PSO)
algorithm was used to determine the optimum criteria of the active LTE BSs (transmission power,
total antenna gain, spectrum/channel bandwidth, and signal-to-interference-noise ratio) that achieves
maximum coverage for the entire area during the switch-off session of 5G BSs. Simulation results
indicate that the energy savings can reach 3.52 kW per day, with a maximum data rate of up to
22.4 Gbps at peak traffic hours and 80.64 Mbps during a 5G BS switched-off session along with
guaranteed full coverage over the entire region by the remaining active LTE BSs
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