5G Radio Access Network Design and Optimization

5G mobile systems are expected to support highly dynamic traffic and stringent delay requirements. Pervasive deployment of a large number of low-power small base stations

(BSs) with possibly overlapped radiation ranges appears to be the most viable solution to meet the requirements. C-RAN is promised to serve in such a scenario by centralizing the baseband units (BBUs) of the BSs into a common BBU pool, while leaving the remote radio units (RRUs) geographically distributed over a wide area for providing radio transmission/reception functions. The centralization of the baseband processing functions shall provide remarkable benefits in terms of resource sharing and most importantly, a seamless inter-BBU collaboration for interference mitigation. The antennas, with all the radio-frequency functionalities and minimal local processing, are hosted at the RRUs, while modulation/demodulation and precoding/decoding are performed at the BBUs.

A tremendous amount of research works regarding the 5G C-RAN design, modelling, and optimization has been reported in the past a few years. However, there are still a number of open issues to be addressed, including the design of front-hauls, the C-RAN backbone interconnections, and the indoor distribution system, etc., which are crucial in supporting the rich and heterogeneous mobile services in the future 5G networks.

The SI is positioned to serving as a platform of gathering a number of researchers in the area of 5G C-RAN design and operation to present their the most state-of-the-art contributions to the related topics, which include but not limited to:

1. CPRI function split schemes and performance evaluation

2. C-RAN designs for emerging applications and service requirements (e.g., IoT, V2x, massive MIMO, and URLLC)

3. C-RAN designs for indoor distributed systems

4. C-RAN for supporting 5G indoor/outdoor positioning systems

5. Energy efficient design for C-RAN backbone

Important Dates

Submission Open: 1 July 2019

Submission Deadline: 1 September 2019

Expected Publication: First Season 2020

Guest Editors

Professor Pin-Han Ho University of Waterloo P4ho@uwaterloo.ca

Professor Xiaohong Jiang Future University, jiang@fun.ac.jp

Professor Janos Tapolcai Budapest University of Science and Economy janos.tapolcai@gmail.com

Professor Dongkyun Kim Kyungpook National University dongkyun@knu.ac.kr