Adaptive C-RAN Architecture Using Crowdsourced Radio Units for Smart City
- Resource Type
- Periodical
- Authors
- So, H.; Maruta, K.; Nakayama, Y.
- Source
- IEEE Access Access, IEEE. 11:81124-81133 2023
- Subject
- Aerospace
Bioengineering
Communication, Networking and Broadcast Technologies
Components, Circuits, Devices and Systems
Computing and Processing
Engineered Materials, Dielectrics and Plasmas
Engineering Profession
Fields, Waves and Electromagnetics
General Topics for Engineers
Geoscience
Nuclear Engineering
Photonics and Electrooptics
Power, Energy and Industry Applications
Robotics and Control Systems
Signal Processing and Analysis
Transportation
Computer architecture
Servers
Wireless communication
Road traffic
Network architecture
Vehicles
Smart cities
Crowdsourcing
Vehicular ad hoc networks
C-RAN
mobile networks
crowdsource
vehicular networks
- Language
- ISSN
- 2169-3536
This paper proposes a concept of adaptive centralized radio access network (C-RAN) architecture for a smart city using crowdsourced radio units (CRUs). To efficiently manage the ever-increasing mobile traffic, mobile networks have improved their capacity. The C-RAN architecture with the dense deployment of small cells has become prevalent in today’s mobile networks. However, the spatiotemporal fluctuation in traffic demand deteriorates the cost and operation efficiencies of conventional networks. Such fluctuation is expected to be intensified in the future in accordance with the increase in the data rate. To address this problem, the proposed architecture utilizes the power of citizens in the network deployment by employing the concept of vehicle-mounted small cells. The onboard CRUs are activated by edge servers when vehicles move to high-demand areas and deactivated when they move to low-demand areas. This paper also proposes the activation algorithm executed by edge servers based on the traffic information measured by roadside units (RSUs). Computer simulations demonstrate that the proposed scheme can improve network throughput during both daytime and nighttime. The proposed architecture contributes to the efficient deployment of mobile networks and better energy use in a smart city.