Cooperative Radio Resource Management in Heterogeneous Cloud Radio Access Networks

Abstract

Responding to the unprecedented challenges imposed by the 5G communications ecosystem, emerging heterogeneous network architectures allow for improved integration between multiple radio access technologies. When combined with advanced cloud infrastructures, they bring to life a novel paradigm of heterogeneous cloud radio access network (H-CRAN). The novel H-CRAN architecture opens door to improved network-wide management, including coordinated cross-cell radio resource allocation. In this paper, emphasizing the lack of theoretical performance analysis, we specifically address the problem of cooperative radio resource management in H-CRAN by providing a comprehensive mathematical methodology for its real-time performance optimization. Our approach enables flexible balance between throughput and fairness metrics, as may be desired by the network operator, and demonstrates attractive benefits when compared against the state-of-the-art multiradio resource allocation strategies. The resulting algorithms are suitable for efficient online implementation, which principal feasibility is confirmed by our proof-of-concept prototype.