Adaptive C-RAN Architecture with Moving Nodes Toward Beyond the 5G Era

The C-RAN architecture has been prevailing in mobile networks for 5G and beyond. Along with the significant increase in the amount of mobile data, network operators must consider the spatio-temporal pattern of traffic demand due to human mobility and lifestyles. It has been an important problem to efficiently deploy mobile networks avoiding the underutilization of cell capacities in off-peak times. To address this problem, in this paper we propose a concept of an adaptive C-RAN architecture toward the beyond 5G era. The proposed architecture enables flexible reconfi guration of the radio unit (RU) states and movable DU locations considering the changes in demand distribution. The DUs and RUs compose wireless relay fronthaul networks to forward fronthaul streams satisfying the strict latency requirements. This paper also proposes the joint scheduling algorithm to activate RUs, relocate DUs, and determine forwarding paths of fronthaul streams. It was confirmed with computer simulations that mobile networks can be efficiently reconstructed with the proposed idea by activating/deactivating RUs and relocating/ migrating DUs.