The Complexity-Rate Tradeoff of Centralized Radio Access Networks

In a centralized radio access network (RAN), the signals from multiple radio access points (RAPs) are centrally processed in a data center. A centralized RAN enables advanced interference coordination strategies while leveraging the elastic provisioning of data processing resources. It is particular...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on wireless communications 2015-11, Vol.14 (11), p.6164-6176
Main Authors: Rost, Peter, Talarico, Salvatore, Valenti, Matthew C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
3GPP LTE
Complexity theory
Computation
Computational complexity
computational diversity
computational outage
Construction
Data processing
Decoding
Mathematical analysis
Measurement
mobile networks
Networks
Outages
Power demand
Radio
Radio access networks
Signal processing
Signal to noise ratio
turbo-decoding
Wireless communication
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Summary:In a centralized radio access network (RAN), the signals from multiple radio access points (RAPs) are centrally processed in a data center. A centralized RAN enables advanced interference coordination strategies while leveraging the elastic provisioning of data processing resources. It is particularly well suited for dense deployments, such as within a large building where the RAPs are connected via fiber and where many cells are underutilized. This paper considers the computational requirements of a centralized RAN with the goal of illuminating the benefits of pooling computational resources. A new analytical framework is proposed for quantifying the computational load associated with the centralized processing of uplink signals in the presence of block Rayleigh fading, a distance-dependent path loss, and fractional power control. Several new performance metrics are defined, including the computational outage probability, the outage complexity, the computational gain, the computational diversity, and the complexity-rate tradeoff. The validity of the analytical framework is confirmed by numerically comparing it with a simulator compliant with the 3GPP LTE standard. Using the developed metrics, it is shown that centralizing computing resources provides a higher net throughput per computational resource as compared with local processing.
ISSN:1536-1276
1558-2248
DOI:10.1109/TWC.2015.2449321