Energy-Saving Transmission for Green Macrocell–Small Cell Systems: A System-Level Perspective

Abstract

Energy minimization has been one of the major research challenges for access networks striving for green communication. Macrocell base stations (MBSs) are the main contributors to energy consumption, and the situation has become worse as more MBSs are being deployed to cope with the ever-increasing data traffic. Therefore, it will be crucial in the near future to minimize the energy consumption of MBSs. Based on various academic and industrial surveys, cellular systems involving both MBSs and small cell base stations (SBSs) are predicted to be the key network architecture for reducing the total energy consumption of access networks. In this paper, an efficient energy-saving transmission algorithm is proposed to minimize power consumption for transceivers in both MBSs and SBSs in cellular systems with a green deployment policy. The proposed algorithm enables grouped SBSs to be smartly activated/deactivated, according to dynamically fluctuating traffic loads, while maintaining the predetermined data rate requirements of all served users. Simulations of various traffic scenarios show that the presented approach performs better in terms of energy saving than the conventional approaches, providing an average improvement of around 20% under the employed real-world traffic pattern. Index Terms-Energy saving, green information and communications technology (ICT), green small cells, system level.1932-8184

A Novel Power-Saving Transmission Scheme for Multiple-Component-Carrier Cellular Systems

“…A substantial amount of the past research regarding designs for radio resource allocation in cellular systems has been concentrated on systems utilizing multi-user single-CC BSs, with several studies having given particular attention to various methods used to improve system performance from the standpoint of individual contributions [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. More specifically, Wong et al [9] proposed a jointly adaptive bit, subcarrier, and power allocation algorithm as a means of improving the performance of a system.…”

“…In a still more recent study, Piunti et al proposed an optimization framework aimed at minimizing the degree of power consumption while also providing the minimum bit rate required for each mobile terminal [16]. Still another approach utilized the development of heterogeneous network deployments with macrocells and small cells in order to enhance energy efficiency [17,18]. Nevertheless, although each of these studies (i.e., [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]) made some important contributions, none of them looked explicitly at multi-CC BSs or the important subject of energy savings.…”

Energy-Efficient Use of Licensed and Unlicensed Bands in D2D-Assisted Cellular Network Systems

“…One potential means of reducing the resulting tension between costs (both financial and energy-related) and user satisfaction would be improving the transmission efficiency of such network systems. In fact, a number of potential solutions aimed at increasing the efficiency of BS-based transmissions have been proposed in our own recent research [2][3][4][5][6][7][8], including the utilization of multiple-component-carrier technology [2][3][4][5] or two-layer macrocell-small cell architectures [6][7][8] to reduce the aforementioned costs and raise overall system performance. It is important to note, however, that both power and bandwidth resources are consumed when data is transferred, via both uplinking and downlinking, through BSs to end users.…”

A Novel Algorithm for Efficient Downlink Packet Scheduling for Multiple-Component-Carrier Cellular Systems

“…There have already been considerable research efforts dedicated to resource management designs for use in cellular systems, with much of those efforts focused on systems that make use of multi-user single-CC BSs [8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. For example, a scheme consisting of enhanced efficiency cross-layer packet scheduling and resource management was proposed by Jeong et al [8], while various fast algorithms designed to provide optimal resource allocation that would, in turn, maximize overall system utility were proposed by Madan et al [9].…”

“…Taking on the issue of energy efficiency from another perspective, the development of heterogeneous network deployments involving both small cells and macrocells was investigated by both Morosi et al [13] and Chung [14] as a means of enhancing energy efficiency. Unfortunately, while all these studies (i.e., [8][9][10][11][12][13][14]) contributed some important insights, the issue of using multiple-CC BSs for packet scheduler designs was not specifically considered by any of them.…”