12,552 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
Understanding the Computational Requirements of Virtualized Baseband Units using a Programmable Cloud Radio Access Network Testbed
Cloud Radio Access Network (C-RAN) is emerging as a transformative
architecture for the next generation of mobile cellular networks. In C-RAN, the
Baseband Unit (BBU) is decoupled from the Base Station (BS) and consolidated in
a centralized processing center. While the potential benefits of C-RAN have
been studied extensively from the theoretical perspective, there are only a few
works that address the system implementation issues and characterize the
computational requirements of the virtualized BBU. In this paper, a
programmable C-RAN testbed is presented where the BBU is virtualized using the
OpenAirInterface (OAI) software platform, and the eNodeB and User Equipment
(UEs) are implemented using USRP boards. Extensive experiments have been
performed in a FDD downlink LTE emulation system to characterize the
performance and computing resource consumption of the BBU under various
conditions. It is shown that the processing time and CPU utilization of the BBU
increase with the channel resources and with the Modulation and Coding Scheme
(MCS) index, and that the CPU utilization percentage can be well approximated
as a linear increasing function of the maximum downlink data rate. These
results provide real-world insights into the characteristics of the BBU in
terms of computing resource and power consumption, which may serve as inputs
for the design of efficient resource-provisioning and allocation strategies in
C-RAN systems.Comment: In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Autonomic
Computing (ICAC), July 201
The edge cloud: A holistic view of communication, computation and caching
The evolution of communication networks shows a clear shift of focus from
just improving the communications aspects to enabling new important services,
from Industry 4.0 to automated driving, virtual/augmented reality, Internet of
Things (IoT), and so on. This trend is evident in the roadmap planned for the
deployment of the fifth generation (5G) communication networks. This ambitious
goal requires a paradigm shift towards a vision that looks at communication,
computation and caching (3C) resources as three components of a single holistic
system. The further step is to bring these 3C resources closer to the mobile
user, at the edge of the network, to enable very low latency and high
reliability services. The scope of this chapter is to show that signal
processing techniques can play a key role in this new vision. In particular, we
motivate the joint optimization of 3C resources. Then we show how graph-based
representations can play a key role in building effective learning methods and
devising innovative resource allocation techniques.Comment: to appear in the book "Cooperative and Graph Signal Pocessing:
Principles and Applications", P. Djuric and C. Richard Eds., Academic Press,
Elsevier, 201
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