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An Overview of Cloud RAN: Architecture, Issues and Future Directions

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Book cover Emerging Trends in Electrical, Electronic and Communications Engineering (ELECOM 2016)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering ((LNEE,volume 416))

Abstract

Cloud radio access network (C-RAN) has been considered as one of the enabling network architectures towards the implementation of fifth generation (5G) wireless systems. Combining with advanced radio, wireless and computing techniques, C-RAN provides great potential to improve the network capacity, spectrum efficiency, energy efficiency and operational flexibility. Therefore, C-RAN has attracted considerable attention from both academia and industry. In this paper, we review the architecture and some of the key physical (PHY) layer signal processing issues of C-RAN. The functional split and limited-capacity fronthaul impose PHY layer issues and signal processing opportunities, e.g., channel state information acquisition, effective compress-and-forward methods and intelligent resource allocation schemes. Moreover, some emerging 5G techniques which can be supported by or integrated with C-RAN architecture, such as software-defined networking, heterogeneous networking, communication at millimeter wave frequencies and full-duplex radio are discussed. The challenges and future research directions are also presented, where mobile edge computing and caching, multi-dimensional resource management and PHY layer security and energy-efficient designs are highlighted.

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Acknowledgement

This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant 61401041, 61671072 and 61501046), and by Meteorological Information and Signal Processing Key Laboratory of Sichuan Higher Education (QXXCSYS201601).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Information and Communication Engineering, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing, 100876, China

    Meruyert Makhanbet, Xuewei Zhang & Hui Gao

  2. Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, 20400, Sri Lanka

    Himal A. Suraweera

Authors
  1. Meruyert Makhanbet
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  2. Xuewei Zhang
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  3. Hui Gao
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  4. Himal A. Suraweera
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hui Gao .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. ACSE, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom

    Peter Fleming

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India

    Nalinaksh Vyas

  3. Department of Computer Science, University of Surrey, Guildford, United Kingdom

    Saeid Sanei

  4. Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA

    Kalyanmoy Deb

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Makhanbet, M., Zhang, X., Gao, H., Suraweera, H.A. (2017). An Overview of Cloud RAN: Architecture, Issues and Future Directions. In: Fleming, P., Vyas, N., Sanei, S., Deb, K. (eds) Emerging Trends in Electrical, Electronic and Communications Engineering. ELECOM 2016. Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering, vol 416. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52171-8_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52171-8_3

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