321 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
Full-Duplex Cloud Radio Access Network: Stochastic Design and Analysis
Full-duplex (FD) has emerged as a disruptive communications paradigm for
enhancing the achievable spectral efficiency (SE), thanks to the recent major
breakthroughs in self-interference (SI) mitigation. The FD versus half-duplex
(HD) SE gain, in cellular networks, is however largely limited by the
mutual-interference (MI) between the downlink (DL) and the uplink (UL). A
potential remedy for tackling the MI bottleneck is through cooperative
communications. This paper provides a stochastic design and analysis of FD
enabled cloud radio access network (C-RAN) under the Poisson point process
(PPP)-based abstraction model of multi-antenna radio units (RUs) and user
equipments (UEs). We consider different disjoint and user-centric approaches
towards the formation of finite clusters in the C-RAN. Contrary to most
existing studies, we explicitly take into consideration non-isotropic fading
channel conditions and finite-capacity fronthaul links. Accordingly,
upper-bound expressions for the C-RAN DL and UL SEs, involving the statistics
of all intended and interfering signals, are derived. The performance of the FD
C-RAN is investigated through the proposed theoretical framework and
Monte-Carlo (MC) simulations. The results indicate that significant FD versus
HD C-RAN SE gains can be achieved, particularly in the presence of
sufficient-capacity fronthaul links and advanced interference cancellation
capabilities
Group Sparse Precoding for Cloud-RAN with Multiple User Antennas
Cloud radio access network (C-RAN) has become a promising network
architecture to support the massive data traffic in the next generation
cellular networks. In a C-RAN, a massive number of low-cost remote antenna
ports (RAPs) are connected to a single baseband unit (BBU) pool via high-speed
low-latency fronthaul links, which enables efficient resource allocation and
interference management. As the RAPs are geographically distributed, the group
sparse beamforming schemes attracts extensive studies, where a subset of RAPs
is assigned to be active and a high spectral efficiency can be achieved.
However, most studies assumes that each user is equipped with a single antenna.
How to design the group sparse precoder for the multiple antenna users remains
little understood, as it requires the joint optimization of the mutual coupling
transmit and receive beamformers. This paper formulates an optimal joint RAP
selection and precoding design problem in a C-RAN with multiple antennas at
each user. Specifically, we assume a fixed transmit power constraint for each
RAP, and investigate the optimal tradeoff between the sum rate and the number
of active RAPs. Motivated by the compressive sensing theory, this paper
formulates the group sparse precoding problem by inducing the -norm as
a penalty and then uses the reweighted heuristic to find a solution.
By adopting the idea of block diagonalization precoding, the problem can be
formulated as a convex optimization, and an efficient algorithm is proposed
based on its Lagrangian dual. Simulation results verify that our proposed
algorithm can achieve almost the same sum rate as that obtained from exhaustive
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