Assessment of Energy Savings in Relay-Assisted 5G and Beyond Radio Access Networks

Reducing the overall energy consumption in mobile networks is currently an important aspect that drives the evolution towards 5 G and beyond systems, both for environmental and economic reasons. In this direction, the use of relay nodes, whose interest is recently revamping through different initiatives such as the Integrated Access and Backhaul, is considered because they can contribute to reducing the overall power consumption thanks to improving the overall coverage conditions in the network. Then, this paper presents an assessment of the energy efficiency improvements and energy savings that can be achieved through the use of relays considering a realistic scenario of a university campus. The paper studies the different aspects that influence on these energy savings, such as the required bit rates and the power consumption model parameters.