Edge Caching in Dense Heterogeneous Cellular Networks with Massive MIMO Aided Self-backhaul

This paper focuses on edge caching in dense heterogeneous cellular networks (HetNets), in which small base stations (SBSs) with limited cache size store the popular contents, and massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) aided macro base stations provide wireless self-backhaul when SBSs require the non-cached contents. Our aim is to address the effects of cell load and hit probability on the successful content delivery (SCD), and present the minimum required base station density for avoiding the access overload in an arbitrary small cell and backhaul overload in an arbitrary macrocell. The massive MIMO backhaul achievable rate without downlink channel estimation is derived to calculate the backhaul time, and the latency is also evaluated in such networks. The analytical results confirm that hit probability needs to be appropriately selected, in order to achieve SCD. The interplay between cache size and SCD is explicitly quantified. It is theoretically demonstrated that when non-cached contents are requested, the average delay of the non-cached content delivery could be comparable to the cached content delivery with the help of massive MIMO aided self-backhaul, if the average access rate of cached content delivery is lower than that of self-backhauled content delivery. Simulation results are presented to validate our analysis.Comment: Accepted to appear in IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communication

A review on green caching strategies for next generation communication networks

© 2020 IEEE. In recent years, the ever-increasing demand for networking resources and energy, fueled by the unprecedented upsurge in Internet traffic, has been a cause for concern for many service providers. Content caching, which serves user requests locally, is deemed to be an enabling technology in addressing the challenges offered by the phenomenal growth in Internet traffic. Conventionally, content caching is considered as a viable solution to alleviate the backhaul pressure. However, recently, many studies have reported energy cost reductions contributed by content caching in cache-equipped networks. The hypothesis is that caching shortens content delivery distance and eventually achieves significant reduction in transmission energy consumption. This has motivated us to conduct this study and in this article, a comprehensive survey of the state-of-the-art green caching techniques is provided. This review paper extensively discusses contributions of the existing studies on green caching. In addition, the study explores different cache-equipped network types, solution methods, and application scenarios. We categorically present that the optimal selection of the caching nodes, smart resource management, popular content selection, and renewable energy integration can substantially improve energy efficiency of the cache-equipped systems. In addition, based on the comprehensive analysis, we also highlight some potential research ideas relevant to green content caching