SDN Based Optimal User Cooperation and Energy Efficient Resource Allocation in Cloud Assisted Heterogeneous Networks

Cloud radio access network (C-RAN) is considered to be a promising architecture for the future network due to its competitive advantage in both spectral efficiency and energy efficiency (EE). However, the tremendous increase in the mobile data traffic lead resource allocation in C-RANs to be less flexible and efficient. To solve this problem, an energy efficient resource allocation scheme for uplink C-RAN is investigated, and its software-based architecture, which provides the proposed framework in a software-defined network fashion is designed. The proposed framework analyzes the information from the data plane, and completes the resource allocation process in the control plane. In the control plane, a relay region selection algorithm is designed to reduce the computational complexity after the user classification module. Then an optimal power allocation, relay selection and network selection scheme with total power constraint, quality of service requirements, and radio resource constraints are proposed to maximize EE. Based on the dual decomposition method and the Dinkelbach method, optimal power allocation, relay selection, and network selection can be obtained from the reformulated convex problem. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.