223 research outputs found
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
Energy-Efficient Design for Downlink Cloud Radio Access Networks
This work aims to maximize the energy efficiency of a downlink cloud radio access network (C-RAN), where data is transferred from a baseband unit in the core network to several remote radio heads via a set of edge routers over capacity-limited fronthaul links. The remote radio heads then send the received signals to their users via radio access links. We formulate a new mixed-integer nonlinear problem in which the ratio of network throughput and total power consumption is maximized. This challenging problem formulation includes practical constraints on routing, predefined minimum data rates, fronthaul capacity and maximum RRH transmit power. By employing the successive convex quadratic programming framework, an iterative algorithm is proposed with guaranteed convergence to a Fritz John solution of the formulated problem. Significantly, each iteration of the proposed algorithm solves only one simple convex program. Numerical examples with practical parameters confirm that the proposed joint optimization design markedly improves the C-RAN's energy efficiency compared to benchmark schemes.This work is supported in part by an ECR-HDR scholarship
from The University of Newcastle, in part by the Australian
Research Council Discovery Project grants DP170100939 and
DP160101537, in part by Vietnam National Foundation for
Science and Technology Development under grant number
101.02-2016.11 and in part by a startup fund from San Diego
State University
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
Joint Design of Fronthauling and Hybrid Beamforming for Downlink C-RAN Systems
Hybrid beamforming is known to be a cost-effective and wide-spread solution
for a system with large-scale antenna arrays. This work studies the
optimization of the analog and digital components of the hybrid beamforming
solution for remote radio heads (RRHs) in a downlink cloud radio access network
(C-RAN) architecture. Digital processing is carried out at a baseband
processing unit (BBU) in the "cloud" and the precoded baseband signals are
quantized prior to transmission to the RRHs via finite-capacity fronthaul
links. In this system, we consider two different channel state information
(CSI) scenarios: 1) ideal CSI at the BBU 2) imperfect effective CSI.
Optimization of digital beamforming and fronthaul quantization strategies at
the BBU as well as analog radio frequency (RF) beamforming at the RRHs is a
coupled problem, since the effect of the quantization noise at the receiver
depends on the precoding matrices. The resulting joint optimization problem is
examined with the goal of maximizing the weighted downlink sum-rate and the
network energy efficiency. Fronthaul capacity and per-RRH power constraints are
enforced along with constant modulus constraint on the RF beamforming matrices.
For the case of perfect CSI, a block coordinate descent scheme is proposed
based on the weighted minimum-mean-square-error approach by relaxing the
constant modulus constraint of the analog beamformer. Also, we present the
impact of imperfect CSI on the weighted sum-rate and network energy efficiency
performance, and the algorithm is extended by applying the sample average
approximation. Numerical results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed
scheme and show that the proposed algorithm is robust to estimation errors
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