Joint Access and Fronthaul Resource Allocation in Dual Connectivity and CoMP Based Networks

In this paper, the performance of fifth generation (5G) cellular networks under two promising technologies, namely dual connectivity and coordinated multi-point transmission (CoMP) is investigated. In this regard, a joint access and fronthaul radio resource allocation for a two tier downlink heterogeneous cloud radio access network (H-CRAN) is formulated. The main aim of the proposed problem formulation is to maximize the system energy efficiency (EE) by using both millimeter wave (mmW) and micro wave (μW) links in access and fronthaul. The proposed optimization is a mixed integer nonconvex problem with a high computational complexity solution. Therefore, existing convex optimization methods can not be used directly to solve this problem. To solve this issue, an iterative algorithm based on a successive convex approximation (SCA) approach with low complexity is exploited. As the numerical results show, via dual connectivity and CoMP EE is improved by approximately 90% compared to using only μW subcarriers.