An Energy Efficient Constraint RRH to Bbu Association in Cloud Radio Access Networks

With the evolution of 5G and the motivation to provide high demand rates to users anywhere anytime, Cloud Radio Access Network (C-RAN) has become one of the most attractive research fields in the development of wireless communication. Alongside the many benefits of C-RAN including cost-effectiveness, dynamic resource allocation, and high rate provisioning comes the challenge of how to allocate the resources and optimize the energy utilization in the centralized cloud. This paper formulates an energy efficient constraint Base Band Unit to Remote Radio Head association according to user rate demands through minimizing the power consumption by deactivating Base Band Units in the Data Center. The formulation is dependent on both the processing capability of the servers in the cloud, and the user rate requirement. These two attributes introduce a challenge when allocating resources in a C-RAN system. Dual constraint bin packing approach is proposed to solve the energy problem. Results were tested with a varying user load showing a drop in the power consumption in the Data Center while successfully maintaining the total rate requirement of the system with a given bandwidth allocation based on Base Band Unit to Base Band Unit interference and frame processing deadline.