154 research outputs found
Wireless Communications in the Era of Big Data
The rapidly growing wave of wireless data service is pushing against the
boundary of our communication network's processing power. The pervasive and
exponentially increasing data traffic present imminent challenges to all the
aspects of the wireless system design, such as spectrum efficiency, computing
capabilities and fronthaul/backhaul link capacity. In this article, we discuss
the challenges and opportunities in the design of scalable wireless systems to
embrace such a "bigdata" era. On one hand, we review the state-of-the-art
networking architectures and signal processing techniques adaptable for
managing the bigdata traffic in wireless networks. On the other hand, instead
of viewing mobile bigdata as a unwanted burden, we introduce methods to
capitalize from the vast data traffic, for building a bigdata-aware wireless
network with better wireless service quality and new mobile applications. We
highlight several promising future research directions for wireless
communications in the mobile bigdata era.Comment: This article is accepted and to appear in IEEE Communications
Magazin
Joint Power Control and Fronthaul Rate Allocation for Throughput Maximization in OFDMA-based Cloud Radio Access Network
The performance of cloud radio access network (C-RAN) is constrained by the
limited fronthaul link capacity under future heavy data traffic. To tackle this
problem, extensive efforts have been devoted to design efficient signal
quantization/compression techniques in the fronthaul to maximize the network
throughput. However, most of the previous results are based on
information-theoretical quantization methods, which are hard to implement due
to the extremely high complexity. In this paper, we consider using practical
uniform scalar quantization in the uplink communication of an orthogonal
frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) based C-RAN system, where the mobile
users are assigned with orthogonal sub-carriers for multiple access. In
particular, we consider joint wireless power control and fronthaul quantization
design over the sub-carriers to maximize the system end-to-end throughput.
Efficient algorithms are proposed to solve the joint optimization problem when
either information-theoretical or practical fronthaul quantization method is
applied. Interestingly, we find that the fronthaul capacity constraints have
significant impact to the optimal wireless power control policy. As a result,
the joint optimization shows significant performance gain compared with either
optimizing wireless power control or fronthaul quantization alone. Besides, we
also show that the proposed simple uniform quantization scheme performs very
close to the throughput performance upper bound, and in fact overlaps with the
upper bound when the fronthaul capacity is sufficiently large. Overall, our
results would help reveal practically achievable throughput performance of
C-RAN, and lead to more efficient deployment of C-RAN in the next-generation
wireless communication systems.Comment: submitted for possible publicatio
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
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