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Recent Research in Cloud Radio Access Network (C-RAN) for 5G Cellular Systems
- A Survey

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DOI: 10.1016/j.jnca.2019.04.019

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 1

Recent Research in Cloud Radio Access Network

(C-RAN) for 5G Cellular Systems - A Survey
Md. Farhad Hossain1 , Ayman Uddin Mahin2 , Topojit Debnath3 , Farjana Binte Mosharrof4 and Khondoker Ziaul
mobile DATA Islam5
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering,
traffic outlook
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka-1205, Bangladesh
Email: 1 mfarhadhossain@eee.buet.ac.bd, 2 aumahin125@gmail.com, 3 topojit.107@gmail.com,
4 bipashafarjana@gmail.com, 5 ziaiut@gmail.com

In 2023, monthly global mobile data traffic will surpass 100 ExaBytes (EB)

Monthly mobile data traffic per smartphone continues to Factors that will drive higher usage in general include an
Abstract—Traditional architectures of cellular networks are from increase
increase in all regions. North America has the highest usage,
currentin13.8 ExaBytes (EB) in 2017 to 110 EB by the
the number of LTE subscriptions, improved
facing tremendous challenges due to unprecedented increase
and traffic is expected to reach 7.1 GigaBytes (GB) per
in end of 2023 at a compound annual growth
device capabilities and more affordable data plans, rateas (CAGR) of
mobile data traffic,
monthlimited spectrumbyavailability
per smartphone the end of theand high
year andpower
increase 42% well
as shown in Fig.in 1.
as an increase data-intensive content. As virtual
consumption. Intolight
48GBofbythis, industries
the end of 2023. as well as
Western research
Europe com-
has the second Supporting
reality and augmented reality technologies
munities are in highest
constant search such a massive volume of are more data
mobile widelytraffic is
usage, with for fundamental
traffic breakthroughs
set to reach 4.1GB by the end of adopted, content will become even more data intensive.
in developing novel network
2017 and 28GB byarchitectures
the end of 2023. for supporting
Western thebe going to be a tremendous challenge for the network operators
Europe will
exploding user the
demand, while
region with thereducing capital
highest growth rateand operational
in monthly mobile in theTotal
upcoming
mobile datadays. Theisessence
traffic expectedistothat mobile
rise at a network ca-
expenditures fordata
network operators.
traffic per smartphone Cloud radio
during access network
the forecast period. compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of
pacity must be increased to meet the demand. Network capac-42 percent
(C-RAN) architecture is such a paradigm shifting concept for
The high average usage in India – estimated to reach as ity can bemobile
Total increased in several
data traffic ways including
for all devices is anticipated by adding more
cellular networks, which is also being actively considered to increase by 8 times during the forecast period,
3.9GBfor
a major candidate perfuture
month per5G smartphone at the end
cellular systems. of 2017
This – is
paper cells to the network, implementing heterogeneous networks
reaching around 110EB per month by the end of 2023. At
mainly due tosurvey
presents a comprehensive an introductory
on the LTE offer
most advances (HetNets)
by an operator
recent close tointroducing
85 percent, data small cells,
traffic usingbybeamforming
generated smartphones (BF),
duringfocusing
in C-RAN research the latter half
on of
the2016, which included
analysis free voice
and enhancement integrating realys and repeaters, adoptng distributed
is already accounting for the largest proportion of mobile antenna
and data
of its various major traffic. Data
aspects. traffic is expected
In particular, after to continue to
reviewing the system data traffic. and
(DAS) Going forward, smartphone
cognitive radio (CR),dataandtraffic will techniques
using
grow, reaching 18GB per month per smartphone in 2023.
works on C-RAN architectures, we then focus on the papers become evenmultiple
more dominant,
like multi-user inputand is expected
multiple to increase
output (MIMO) and
published specifically on the throughput enhancement, interfer- by 9 times during the forecast period to account for close
ence management, energy efficiency, latency, security and system massive MIMO [3]–[7]. The major drawbacks
to 95 percent of total mobile data traffic by the end of 2023. of these tech-
cost reduction of C-RAN based cellular networks. A summary nologies are higher inter-cell interference, complex network
of the open issues and future research directions in these areas operations and maintenance, increased energy consumption
of C-RAN based cellular networks is also presented. and reduced profit margin for the operators due to increase
Data traffic per active smartphone Global mobile data traffic
Index Terms—C-RAN architectures; throughput; interference
(GigaBytes per month) (ExaBytes per month)
management; energy efficiency; latency; security; system cost;
5G cellular networks.
Middle 120
2017 110EB
East and Close to 95% of mobile
Africa 2023
data traffic will come from
I. I2017
NTRODUCTION smartphones in 2023
North 100
East Asia

I N recent years, the 2023

mobile subscriptions
South East and
Asia and
traffic [1], [2]. One of
world has seen a massive surge in
2017 a corresponding explosion in data

Oceania 2023
the studies found that the number
80
of unique mobile subscribers in the world have surged from
Smartphones
4.5 billion in 2013Latinto 2017 5.4 billion in 2017 and can reach Mobile PCs, tablets
America
2023
to 6.2 billion by the end of 2023 [1]. The driving factors and routers
60
behind this unprecedented 2017rise in global penetration of mobile
devices include an India
increasing
2023 trend in accepting the concept
of sustainable development through digital revolution by the
Central and 2017
state policymakers, a global acceleration in the deployment
Eastern 40
Europe 2023
of fourth generation (4G) long-term evolution (LTE) cellular
systems, introduction
Western of affordable smart devices with im-
2017

proved capabilities (e.g.,2023smartphones and tablets), diverse

Europe
20
user friendly applications and an increase in data-intensive
2017
North
contents. Introduction
America
of fifth generation (5G) cellular systems
2023
as expected to be in 2019 and more data intensive applications 0
including virtual reality and augmented 10 20 reality
30 technologies
40 50 60 2013 2018 2023
will even make mobile devices much more popular in the
upcoming days. Correspondingly, the forecast in [1] suggests Fig. 1: A forecast of global mobile data traffic in EB per month
12
that the total global mobile data trafficNOVEMBER 2017
per month can surge up to 2023 [1].
in capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operational expenditure
(OPEX) [5], [6]. Apart from the increase in network capacity,
future 5G networks must also support enormous number of
connected devices (tens of thousands per macrocell), high
data rate (∼ tens of Gbps), enhanced spectral efficiency
(SE), improved energy efficiency (EE), robust reliability (∼
99.999%), almost ’anytime anywhere’ connectivity and ex-
tremely low latency (∼ 1ms) for data intensive, mission critical
and time critical applications [8]–[11]. Current technologies
are clearly in lack for supporting such crucial requirements.
Therefore, the industries and researchers need to bring some
fundamental changes in future networks both in technologies
and architectures.
Cloud radio access network (C-RAN) based cellular net-
works, a strong contender for future 5G cellular systems,
has all the potential for meeting the above requirements [7],
[12], [13]. It is a paradigm shifting evolutionary concept,
first time outlined by IBM in [14], proposing the architecture
and operations of cellular networks in such a way which is
completely different from the current systems. In C-RAN,
baseband units (BBUs) of all base stations (BSs) in a RAN
is centralized forming a virtualized BBU pool, which is then
shared among the BSs [5], [13], [14]. Due to the inherent
advantages of C-RAN over the traditional RANs as discussed
in Section II, an intensive research initiative on identifying the
potentials, challenges and solutions of open issues in C-RAN
is underway as evident from the large number of emerging
articles.
In this paper, we aim to present a comprehensive survey
on the recent works in the filed of C-RAN. Previous surveys
mainly focused on a particular area of C-RAN. For instance,
authors in [15] summarized the works on the centralization
and virtualization for C-RANs. By introducing the concept
and architectures of C-RAN, requirement of higher capacity
in the fronthaul, virtualization techniques for the BBU pool,
hardware implementations and challenges were discussed in
[5]. On the other hand, recent developments in resource alloca-
tion for heterogeneous C-RAN (H-CRAN) were surveyed and
investigated in [16]. This paper also proposed and investigated
coordinated scheduling, hybrid backhauling and multi-cloud
association based three different resource allocation schemes.
Moreover, a survey of the recent works on the architectures,
key technologies and open issues in C-RANs was presented
in [12]. This paper discussed the key technologies by dividing
them into four different sections, namely, fronthaul compres-
sion, large-scale collaborative processing, channel estimation
and cooperative radio resource allocation. Furthermore, a
survey on the works on C-RAN security was presented in [13].
Various security threats and vulnerabilities of C-RAN were
identified and analyzed following a comprehensive review of
the existing literature studies. This paper also introduced the
solutions to security threats in different logic layers of C-RAN
and discussed their relative advantages and drawbacks.
Instead of focusing on a specific issue, our paper presents
a survey covering several aspects of C-RAN based cellular
networks such that a reader can immediately have a basic, but
a complete picture of the state-of-the-art research directions of
C-RAN by dividing them into several distinguished sections.
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Fig. 2: A general architecture of C-RAN based cellular net-
works.
Rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section II presents
the concepts of C-RAN including a summary of the advantages
and disadvantages of this technology. A comprehensive survey
on the proposed architectures for C-RAN is presented in Sec-
tion III. Research works on the throughput improvement are
discussed in Section IV, whereas a summary of the works on
interference management techniques for C-RAN based cellular
networks is presented in Section V. Then the works on the
improvement of EE are presented in Section VI following the
works related to delay, security and system cost minimization
in Section VII, VIII and IX respectively. A summary of the
open issues, challenges and future research directions is also
included in Section X. Finally, the paper is concluded with a
brief summary in Section XI.
II. C LOUD R ADIO ACCESS N ETWORK
C-RAN refers to a cellular network architecture where
baseband and higher-layer functions of BSs are performed in a
cloud. A C-RAN architecture basically has three components
- a BBU pool consisting of a many BBUs with centralized
processors, remote radio heads (RRHs) with antennas and a
fronthaul network connecting RRHs with the BBU pool [5],
[9], [13], [14], [17], [18]. A general architecture of C-RAN
based cellular network is shown in Fig. 2.
In C-RAN, traditional BSs are decoupled into two parts -
distributed RRHs and BBUs clustered into a pool. The pool is
placed at a centralized site (i.e., cloud) having a set of BBUs.
That means that the radio resources of different BBUs can
be shared to meet the dynamic user demand having tempo-
spatial variation. The cloud controls the RRHs and is also
reconfigurable, i.e., number of BBUs can be changed with
time. The cloud functions as virtual BSs performing baseband
processing with the help of general purpose processors. Signal
processing resources in the cloud are dynamically allocated on
demand basis. Various functions including modulation, coding,
fast fourier transform, and selection of suitable frequency
or channel are performed in the cloud. On the other hand,
RRHs equipped with antennas transmit radio signals from
the BBU cloud to the users in the downlink and forward
the baseband signals from users to the cloud for process-
ing. Main functions of RRHs includes radio frequency (RF)
amplification, up/down conversion, filtering, digital process-
ing, analog-to-digital conversion, digital-to-analog conversion
and interface adaptation. As most of the signal processing
functions are performed in cloud, RRHs can relatively be
simple and distributed in a large scale scenario in a cost-
efficient manner. The third component, fronthaul provides
the communication links between BBUs and RRHs. Various
technologies, such as optical fiber communication, standard
wireless communication, or even millimeter wave (mmWave)
communication can be used for implementing this fronthaul
links [9]. Optical fiber communication fronthaul has the ca-
pability to support high transmission capacity at the expense
of high cost and un-flexible deployment. Whereas, wireless
fronthaul employing wireless communications with 5 GHz -
40 GHz carrier frequencies are cheaper and more flexible at
the cost of reduced capacity and other constraints.
A. Benefits of C-RAN
C-RAN has some great advantages over the existing coun-
terpart as summarized below [5]–[7], [12], [17]–[26].
• Reduced CAPEX and OPEX: Deployment and commis-
sioning of a macrocell BS (MBS) is expensive and
time-consuming. In contrast, C-RAN involves less cost,
space and time to deploy, install, and operate RRHs
[7]. Furthermore, C-RAN can make it possible to more
effectively equipment sharing leading to reduced CAPEX.
A quantitative analysis presented in [21] showed that C-
RANs has the potential to reduce CAPEX up to 15% per
kilometer. Besides, computating resources in C-RAN are
aggregated in few big clouds leaving simpler functions
in RRHs, which can save a large portion of OPEX and
management cost [7], [18].
• Improved EE: Number of BBUs required in a C-RAN
is less than a conventional RAN leading to reduction in
power consumption [27], [28]. Besides, air conditioning
of radio modules in C-RANs can be decreased around
90% as RRHs are naturally cooled by air hanging on
masts or building walls [27]. Furthermore, C-RANs allow
both UEs and MBSs to offload their data intensive
energy-consuming computations to a nearby cloud saving
their energy [22]. One study conducted by ZTE estimated
that C-RAN can achieve up to 80% energy savings
compared to traditional RAN [25].
• Improved spectral efficiency (SE): C-RAN can also im-
prove the SE of cellular networks. For instance, imple-
mentation of coordinated and cooperative transmission/
reception strategies, such as enhanced inter-cell interfer-
ence coordination (eICIC) and coordinated multi-point
transmission (CoMP) across the RRHs connected to the
same cloud will be much simpler and more effective
resulting in higher SE [5], [17].
• Reduced latency: C-RAN has the capability to reduce
latency in performing various operations. For instance,
the time needed to perform handovers will be reduced
as it can be done inside a cloud instead of between BSs.
Failure rate in handover can also be decreased. Moreover,
the general amount of signaling information sent to core
network can be reduced in C-RAN and hence latency will
be reduced.
• Facilitate the switching of BBUs: C-RAN relaxes the
constraint of keeping each BS on for all time. As all
processing functionalities are implemented in a remote
cloud, power consumption and load congestion can be
reduced by dynamically allocating processing capability
and migrating tasks in the BBU pool. Thus several BBUs
can be turned to low power sleep mode or even be shut
down for saving energy [7].
• Improved interference management: C-RAN enables ease
sharing of channel state information (CSI), traffic data
and control information of mobile services among co-
operating BSs. This will allow more effective multi-
point cooperation and enable multiplexing more streams
on the same channel with substantially reduced mutual
interference [7]. Due to the decrease of interference, link
quality as well as throughput will be greatly improved.
• Ease of maintenance and expansion: The inherent cen-
tralized architecture of C-RAN makes it easily scalable
and thus simplifies the cellular network upgrading and
maintenance. For example, a network operator only needs
to add new RRHs connecting with the cloud for covering
more service areas or split the cell for higher capacity
[7], [12]. C-RAN also facilitates on demand installation
of virtual resources in cloud [23], [24]. Besides, C-RAN
provides a smooth way for introducing new standards,
as hardware needs to be placed in few centralized loca-
tions. Moreover, centralization of BBUs in cloud enables
easy and more frequent CPU updates than that in the
traditional systems. Furthermore, the native centralized
support for multi-standard operation will make inter-RAN
operation relatively easy [5].
• Adaptability to non-uniform traffic: Modern day cellular
networks exhibit a substantial amount of tempo-spatial di-
versity in traffic. However, BSs are dimensioned for busy
hours implying a wastage of processing power during off-
peak hours [26]. Since in C-RAN, baseband processing of
multiple BSs is carried out in the centralized BBU pool,
resources to the BSs can be allocated in an optimum way
based on the instantaneous traffic demand and thus the
overall resource utilization rate can be improved.
B. Drawbacks of C-RAN
C-RAN has also some drawbacks, which need to be ad-
dressed before implementing C-RAN based cellular networks.
For instance, security and trust problem of C-RAN is one of
the major problems, which has drawn special concern. In a
wireless network, due to its open broadcast nature, a user either
authorized or illegitimate, can access it. In addition to common
security threats of conventional wireless networks, such as
primary user emulation attack (PUEA) and spectrum sensing
data falsification (SSDF) attack, due to its transmission and
self-deploying nature, C-RAN will face more serious security
threats and trust problems [13]. Furthermore, as the BBUs of
many BSs are bundled together in the cloud, C-RAN has the
huge risk of single-point failure, i.e., if the cloud fails, the
entire network will be out of operation. On the other hand,
C-RAN architecture brings a huge overhead on the optical
fronthaul links between RRHs and cloud, which can be as
high as 50 times compared to the backhaul requirements [5].
In addition, latency/jitter between cloud and RRHs, complex
BS operations in cloud and risk of losing the compatibility of
the native hardware are some of the major drabacks of C-RAN
[19]. There is also a potential to increase latency in some cases
due to centralized signal processing [12].
III. R ESEARCH ON C-RAN A RCHITECTURES
As stated earlier and also demonstated in Fig. 2, the generic
C-RAN system separates the BBU from a traditional BS and
then the BBUs of many BSs are bundled together into a
cloud such that the pool can be shared among many RRHs.
Since the inception of C-RAN concept, several works from
both the industries and academia, have been published on its
architectural design such that it can meet the demand of users
as well as of the operators of future cellular networks [7], [9],
[16], [29]–[43].
A. Generic C-RAN
Depending on the different functional splitting between
BBU cloud and RRHs, China Mobile classified the C-RAN
architectures into two categories - fully centralized and par-
tially centralized [31]. Whereas, based on the fronthaul con-
straints and the functional splitting between BBUs and RRHs,
authors in [9] extended this classification into three categories
- fully centralized, partially centralized and hybrid. In fully
centralized case, functions of Layer 1, Layer 2 and Layer 3
of the conventional BSs are moved into the BBU cloud. The
BBU cloud performs all processing and managing functions
of the traditional BSs. Although this architecture is clear,
simple and have significant benefits in terms of operation and
maintenance, burden on the fronthaul is substantial. On the
other hand, in partially centralized C-RAN architecture, a RRH
performs the RF functions as well as some strictly RF related
baseband processing functions. Rest of the Layer 1 functions
and the functions of upper layers are executed in the cloud.
Consequently, constraints on fronthaul are mitigated due to
the substantial reduction of RRH-BBU overhead. However,
the interaction between Layer 1 and 2 can be complex and
consequently, coordinated and cooperative processing required
for advanced techniques (e.g., CoMP, massive MIMO) can
be less efficient. The third option, a special case of fully
centralized option, hybrid centralized architecture moves some
functions of Layer 1 from BBU cloud and assigns them into
a new separated processing unit, which can be a part of the
cloud. This option facilitates the flexible resource sharing and
reduces energy consumption in the cloud.
Recently, a quantitative techno-economic analysis on decid-
ing the optimal functional split in C-RAN having minimum
total cost of ownership (TCO) was investigated in [40]. To do
so, this paper proposes a hybrid C-RAN (H-RAN) architecture
in which the functional split of a baseband processing chain of
a BS is modeled consisting of three sub-models - a sequence of
processing functions (PFs), functional split complexity model
and functional split bandwidth model. Then a model for
evaluating the TCO for the H-RAN as a function of fronthaul
bandwidth requirement and computational resources placed
at remote site is also proposed and numerical studies are
conducted. It is demonstrated that the proposed H-RAN with
optimal functional split can achieve lower TCO than both the
generic fully centralized C-RAN and traditional distributed
RAN models.
A service-oriented C-RAN architecture with a novel logical
structure was proposed in [7]. Proposed logical structure
consists of a physical plane, a control plane and a service plane
with the aim to serve both users and operators with better
network performance. The physical plane mainly handles
virtualization for resource provisioning, baseband pool inter-
connection topology and signal processing, such as channel
decoding, demultiplexing, and fast fourier transform (FFT).
The control plane consisting of resource management module
(RMM) and service maintenance module (SMM) functions
based on the underlying physical plane, and supports the
service plane. It also enables situation-aware and application-
aware RAN reconfiguration and RAN selection. On the other
hand, the service plane is a platform where fixed and mobile
services are provided. Application delivery, mobility manage-
ment, enabling multimedia applications, network management
and security are some of the major services provided by this
plane.
Another novel C-RAN architecture named as convergence
of cloud and cellular systems (CONCERT) was proposed in
[39]. This architecture proposes three distinguished planes -
data, control and software-defined service planes. The data
plane contains heterogeneous physical resources and performs
basic signal processing tasks. Whereas, the control plane, a
logically centralized entity, performs several functions includ-
ing radio interface management, wired networking manage-
ment and location-aware computing management. On the other
hand, software-defined services layer works as a virtual BS
and provides various services to the data layer. The services
provided by this layer are quite similar to those of the service
plane proposed in the architecture of [7].
On the other hand, a scalable and light-weight C-RAN
architecture, named as FluidNet, with a novel logically re-
configurable and flexible fronthaul between BBUs and RRHs
was proposed in [38]. The objective of the new architecture
is to support maximum traffic while minimizing the required
amount of computing resources used in the BBU pool with a
consideration of the tempo-spatial traffic diversity. Motivation
for a re-configurable fronthaul was achieved through the
conducted experiment on a WiMAX C-RAN testbed. FluidNet
proposes an intelligent controller to be housed in the BBU
 Internet

Sync/control/transport/baseband…
Sync/Control/Transport/
Sync
/Control
/Transport
/ ...
BBU pool

RRH RRH
RRH eNB
RRH eNB

RRH RRH
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UEs

Fig. 3: A typical architecture of H-CRAN [43].

formance. This novel architecture implements coor a

pool,
dinatedwhich
RRMdynamically
and eases the re-configures the fronthaul
operation pressure of new on efficient
basedproblem to solve,resource
which is sharing among
quite suitable fordifferent entities feasible
network feedback
access points to cater effectively both heterogeneous user through the cloud by means of jointly encoding (decoding)
significantly.
andThe rest profiles.
traffic of this article
It is isalso
organized
shown as follows.
that FluidNet achieves the messages using downlink (uplink) a coordinated resource
We first
50% address the
improvement in 5G H-CRANtraffic
satisfying demands asdistributed
architecture well as wireless
allocationcommunication
techniques (e.g., system.BF, Aim
power control, BS association
supporting RRM. We present the 5G MIMO pre ing at balancing the load between different base
reduces 50% of the computing resource usage in the BBU and scheduling) [16], [35]. Authors in [16] proposed two
coding problem. Then we propose our two-tier stations, the centralized BBU pool clustered with
pool compared to the baseline schemes.
interference-free hybrid precoding scheme, fol different architectures for H-CRAN involving diverse cell size.
Authors
lowed by theof performance
[36] proposedevaluation.
a passive optical networksum
In the end, (PONs) The firstPHY/MAC)
access control, one includesprocessing.
a single cloud Forconnected to the BSs from
based C-RAN architecture with power over fiber (PoF) to have different
inter-cluster tiers using
communication, theeither optical isor wireless backhaul links,
X2 interface
the advantages of low installation cost and removal of external while the second one proposes multiple clouds connecting
power supply for RRHs. OF CR model is dividedA typical
The network into eachC-RAN of architecture
them to a set mainlyof BSsconsists
through hybrid backhauling.
In this section, we overview H-CRAN systems and
three parts - a central office (CO), i.e., the cloud, an optical Whereas, a novel H-CRAN architecture by integrating massive
introduce the massive MIMO assisted H-CRAN 1. The remote radio heads (RRHs), distributed radio
line terminal (OLT) and the RRHs. As per the proposal, units an MIMO for
with antennas enabling
located broadband
at a remote site transmission was proposed
optical splitter is used to serve multiple RRHs over justBBU
2. The in [43].
a pool Proposed
composed H-CRAN divided the complete operation
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single optical ERfiber cable,
ON OF whereas CRthe OLT is used to aggregateprogrammable equipment
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logical layers,net namely, infrastructure layer,
In 5G systems, there
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C. Enhanced eNB can harmonize
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ed as one of the most exciting solutions to the eral C-RAN
delivered throughout architecture
the network. Withby integrating
these out advanced techniques,
B. Heterogeneous
impending mobile data C-RAN traffic crunch in the con standing advantages, H-CRANs are ableMIMO, to com [29], massive MIMO [43],
such as BF [33], multi-user
text of existing
Being LTE-A
motivated andthe
from 5G.major
It is constructed of
inherent advantages bineof HetNets
het- NOMA with C-RANs
[29], and benefitcommunications
mmWave from them. [41], clustering [32]
different network tiers and cell sizes by deploying
erogeneous networks than the conventional networks, several and coalition formation [42]. In [33], authors proposed a C-
nodes of different transmission powers, such as
works in [16], [35], [43] proposed architectures for heteroge- RAN SS VEarchitecture ASSinvolving utility-based cooperative BF. The
neous
becomes C-RAN (H-CRAN)
an inevitable trendwhich combines
for future CR A
both BS densifi- backhaul link is proposed to be of optical fiber, and signal pro-
develop
cation
ment of and centralizednetworks
information processing. sinceAittypical
makes H-CRAN
full H-CRANs cessing
In system equipped and withresource
massiveallocation
MIMO, eNBs are executed in a centralized
model is shown in Fig. 3. H-CRAN has the potential toand RRHs consisting
achieve manner. of Toseveral
modelhundred
the utility elements
of a user, a sigmoidal function
simultaneously serve mobile terminals within
working access technologies and various service the specific time-frequency resources. Massive
of the SINR is used considering real time applications. A
non-convex problem for utility maximization is formulated,
which is then solved by introducing a maximum interference
constraint, employing convex relaxation and exploiting the
sum-of-ratios form of the objective function. Maximization
of the aggregate utility of the users are performed under
imperfect CSI, limited backhaul capacity and QoS require-
ments. It is found that the aggregate utility of the proposed
C-RAN increases almost linearly for less number of users and
becomes sub-linear for large number of users. Moreover, an
inversely proportional behavior of the aggregate utility with the
normalized maximum channel estimation error is identified.
Whereas authors in [41] proposed a C-RAN system having
a multi-user downlink with mmWave. In this architecture, the
fronthaul and the access link transmissions are implemented
with mmWave frequency bands. A stochastic geometry based
network model is considered, where RRHs are distributed
randomly following independent homogeneous poisson point
process (PPP). It is found that larger antenna arrays are
shown to compensate for outage and latency performance
degradation with higher RRH deployment, which can be
considered as a tradeoff between inter-cluster interference and
RRH density. Besides, authors of [29] investigated a C-RAN
scheme integrating both multi-user MIMO and NOMA. This
paper proposes an end-to-end uplink transmission scheme,
which is capable to deal with implementation and deployment
constraints on both the UE-RRH and fronthaul interfaces in
an efficient way. The system model also considers several user
groups assuming that the system architecture allows for all the
users to centralize the user-specific physical layer functions
enabling to perform multi-cell multi-user joint detection (JD)
on the uplink when NOMA is applied. Furthermore, a partial
NOMA scheme is also proposed and found its capability to
achieve high throughput with reduced computational complex-
ity and delay.
On the other hand, a mutually interfering multi-cluster based
C-RAN architecture was proposed in [32]. The motivation
behind the proposal of smaller size multiple clusters of RRHs
is to reduce the cost though it can reduce SE of the system
due to inter-cluster interference. Proposed architecture also
integrates fronthaul BF, clustered BF across the RRHs and
fronthaul compression. An inter-cluster joint optimization is
then carried out demonstrating better sum-rate performance
compared to the intra-cluster and inter-cluster TDMA based
designs. Another work in [42] proposed an architecture for
cooperative transmission among RRHs in the C-RAN by for-
mulating a RRH coalition formation game. RRHs are assumed
to be capable to decide whether to form a coalition with
other RRHs to achieve improved performance. This coalition
formation among RRHs for jointly serving users can mitigate
intra-interference leading to better throughput compared to the
non-coalition and grand coalition.
IV. R ESEARCH ON C-RAN T HROUGHPUT E NHANCEMENT
Throughput enhancement is one of the major objectives of
5G cellular networks. Therefore, research on the development
of techniques for improving throughput in C-RAN system is
of great importance. The most recent works conducted on
improving the throughput in C-RAN systems are discussed
here below.
As discussed before, performance of C-RAN is limited
by the high bit rate requirement in the fronthaul. Therefore,
authors in [44] investigated the maximum achievable through-
put by different transmission strategies in a C-RAN with
clusters of RRHs under transmission power constraints and
fronthaul capacity constraints. Two transmission strategies are
studied - without cooperation and with cooperation among
different cells. In the case of ”without cooperation”, each UE
is served by only one RRH. Whereas, for the case of ”with
cooperation”, multiple RRHs serve multiple UEs together,
which becomes equivalent to distributed MIMO (D-MIMO).
From the simulation results, it is evident that D-MIMO has a
better performance than that of “without cooperation” based
transmission.
In [45], authors investigated the throughput of a two-tier
H-CRAN, where massive MIMO enabled MBSs work as the
first tier and RRHs work in the second tier. To mitigate the
interference between two tiers, soft fractional frequency reuse
(S-FFR) is used. An exact expression of throughput for the
RRH tier and a closed form lower bound expression for the
MBSs throughput are provided. From the system model, it is
seen that with the dense number of RRHs, implementation of
massive MIMO in MBSs can greatly enhance the throughput
of the entire C-RAN system. With the increase of MBS
antenna, throughput of MBS tier and H-CRAN increases
greatly due to array gain, while keeping the RRH throughput
almost same. Adding more users in the macrocell improves the
throughput even further. This paper also explores the effects of
S-FFR and RRHs density on the C-RAN system model. It is
found that with the increase of S-FFR factor α, throughput of
MBS tier and H-CRAN decreases for the low density RRHs
system. But for the high density RRHs system, throughput of
H-CRAN increases with α due to the high number of resource
block (RB) available at the RRHs.
Whereas, a two-step scheduling algorithm for increasing
the throughput of C-RAN with delay sensitive applications
was proposed in [46]. The algorithm controls the inter-cell
interference (ICI) with relatively simple design. In the first
step of the algorithm, users are grouped according to their
interference levels. Then, in the second step, channels are allo-
cated for maximizing the utilities of the groups. A maximum-
weight matching approach with Kuhn-Munkres algorithm in
assigning the channels is used. While, in conventional soft
frequency reuse (SFR) algorithm, the users can only transmit
at full power in the edge band, proposed algorithm allows the
users to use full power always. It also shows superiority over
the SFR algorithm with increasing traffic arrival intensity. With
high arrival rate, average delay and delay violation probability
are found much lower in the proposed algorithm leading to
significantly increased throughput.
Efficient resource allocation is necessary to achieve high
throughput in C-RAN system. Most of the resource alloca-
tion techniques in C-RAN use orthogonal frequency division
multiple access (OFDMA), where each RB can be associated
with maximum one user at any time. In [47], authors utilized
NOMA technique for improving throughput in C-RAN. As the
original optimization problem is NP-hard, authors propose a
sub-optimal binary integer programming (BIP) algorithm and
a greedy scheduling scheme. In comparison to the present
OFDMA allocation techniques, such as static sharing and
heuristic scheme, NOMA provides a much higher throughput
due to the fact that in NOMA, UEs can share the RBs
allowing the underutilized RBs to be used by another RRHs.
For example, in a system of 45 RRHs, it is found that BIP and
greedy scheme provide throughput around 340 Mbps, where
static sharing and heuristic schemes can extract 255 and 300
Mbps respectively.
In [48], authors studied the mode selection and resource
allocation problem in a uplink device-to-device (D2D) en-
abled C-RAN system. In D2D communications, users can
communicate with each other without using RRHs. D2D
communications not only increase throughput and decrease
latency, but also allow optimization in the mode selection and
resource allocation technique in C-RAN. Since the burdens
of BBU pools and fronthaul is large on the system, this paper
utilizes a game-theoretic approach to solve the problems. Sim-
ulation results prove that if D2D pairs are allowed to choose
between D2D mode or C-RAN mode, larger throughput can
be achieved. Utilization of exhaustive search can even leads
to higher throughput being as much as 93% of the optimal
value.
Another work presented in [49] proposed a joint coordinated
resource scheduling and power control based approach for
maximizng the weighted sum-rate in the downlink of C-RAN.
In this scheme, the cloud is responsible for the scheduling pol-
icy, power control and synchronization of the transmit frames
across the BSs, where transmit frame consists of several
time/frequency blocks, named as power-zones (PZs). Then, the
problem becomes equivalent to scheduling users to PZs and
determining their power levels (PLs), where each user can be
served by more than one PZs within each BS frame. The prob-
lem is then solved using a graph theoretical approach, while
the presented results clearly show the substantial improvement
in sum-rate. Besides, [50] formulated a novel traffic aware
joint scheduling (TAJS) resource virtualization algorithm for
C-RAN and investigated its potential benefits. A hypervisor
among different virtual operators (VOs) dynamically coordi-
nates and allocates air interface resources. This paper develops
three distinctive resource allocation schemes, which are then
compared with the performance of the standard Round Robin
(RR) scheduling. Simulation results show improvements in
the throughput for both video and web users in all the three
schemes. In addition, reduction in end-to-end delay for delay
sensitive applications and fairness across all the users is also
guaranteed.
On the other hand, a dynamic C-RAN operation framework
for mobile cloud computing (MCC) was proposed in [51]. Due
to the inherent outdated CSI in such a system, the topology
configuration and rate-allocation problem with delayed CSI
is formulated using a deterministic stochastic optimization
framework. This framework has the capability in maximiz-
ing the MCC services’ sum throughput with constraints on
response latency experienced by each MCC user. Moreover,
this paper proposed a low complexity optimal policy for the
stochastic optimization problem with both offline and online
algorithms. Simulation results demonstrate the superiority of
the proposed scheme in terms of throughput and latency of
MCC users.
Furthermore, uplink throughput maximization by jointly
considering power control and fronthaul rate allocation of
a OFDMA based C-RAN system was investigated in [52].
Here, each RRH’s fronthaul capacity constraint is achieved
by proposing a practical uniform scalar quantization at each
RRH together with independent compression among RRHs.
Two different optimization problems for maximizing the sum-
rate are formulated. Due to the non-convexity of these prob-
lems, efficient algorithms are then proposed for solving them.
Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed joint opti-
mization provides significant performance gain compared with
optimizing only wireless power control or fronthaul quantiza-
tion. It is also shown that the proposed uniform quantization
scheme can perform very close to the throughput performance
upper bound.
It is to be noted that any technique proposed for reduc-
ing interference in a C-RAN system eventually improves its
throughput. As we group the papers specifically conducted on
the interference management of the C-RAN systems separately
in Section V, those papers are not included in this section.
V. R ESEARCH ON I NTERFERENCE M ANAGEMENT
As centralized operation of C-RAN facilitates the BS co-
ordination and joint signal processing across the network,
interference management is expected to be more efficient than
in the conventional networks [16], [53]. However, interference
management problems in C-RAN are more complex and non-
convex due to the emergence of new set of cloud-structure
variables [53]. Managing interference in H-CRANs is even
more challenging because of its prolific heterogeneity, number
of BSs, network size and fronthaul/backhaul constraints.
Authors in [54] proposed a compressive sensing (CS)-based
joint narrowband interference (NBI) mitigation and user data
recovery technique for C-RANs. This technique exploits the
inherent sparsity in individual user data structure for reducing
the fronthaul capacity requirement. To do so, a sparse max-
imum likelihood estimation (MLE) problem for maximizing
the associated likelihood function under individual sparsity
levels (ISLs) constraints is formulated, which is then solved
using an alternating optimization (AO) algorithm. It has been
shown that proposed AO algorithm converges to the global
optimal solution of the sparse MLE problem under some mild
conditions. Performance of the C-RAN under various fronthaul
capacity is then quantified in closed-form. Capability of the
proposed technique in outperforming the existing practical CS-
based interference cancellation schemes and the conventional
CS recovery algorithms is then demonstrated.
On the other hand, a scheme with distributed baseband
signal compressive quantization and parallel interference can-
cellation (PIC) for C-RAN is proposed in [55]. At each RRH,
the baseband signals of multiple time instants are embedded
into a vector with low dimension using delay-and-add so that
more bits can be allocated to each value and the quantization
noise power caused by the fronthaul link capacity deficit is
reduced. Whereas, at the BBU side, the linear minimum mean
square error (LMMSE) and maximal ratio combining (MRC)
detectors are designed with the appropriate weight vectors to
detect the symbols from the compressive quantized baseband
signal processed by the RRHs. The PIC algorithm proposed
in this paper further improves the accuracy of the symbol
detection by limiting interference. Numerical results confirm
that the proposed scheme enables multi-antenna C-RAN to
utilize larger bandwidth under limited fronthaul capacity with
improved SINR performance.
Massive number of wireless devices in C-RAN may cause
severe inter-user interference (IUI) limiting its performance.
The unique spatial and temporal focusing effects of time-
reversal (TR) communication can be a promising tool for
C-RAN to alleviate the traffic load in the fronthaul links
in both directions. Authors in [56] optimized both downlink
and uplink transmissions for mitigating IUI in TR based C-
RAN systems. In the downlink, algorithms are proposed for
optimally determining the power allocation and transmitting
waveforms to minimize the mean square error (MSE) of the
signal received by the terminal devices (TDs). These algo-
rithms combine the instantaneous channel impulse responses
(CIRs) as well as the intended symbols of all the TDs available
at BBUs. Whereas, CIRs of all the TDs available at BBUs are
utilized for optimizing joint transmit power control of all the
TDs and detector design in the uplink.
Clustering of RRHs can be integrated in C-RANs for
enhancing resource utilization through statistical multiplexing
by grouping several RRHs into a cluster and associating
this cluster with a single BBU. In light of this, authors in
[57] proposed an interference-aware clustering in C-RAN.
Proposed RRH clustering is formulated as a set partitioning
problem. Both optimal and heuristic solutions are developed
and solved under the constraint of a minimum throughput
requirement demonstrating improved system performance than
that of no-clustering counterpart. Whereas, for improving the
performance of the cluster-edge users by mitigating both the
intra- and inter-cluster interference, a dynamic joint process-
ing (DJP) technique was proposed in [58]. Proposed system
utilizes a dynamic clustering of virtual BSs (VBSs) in C-RAN.
Here, VBS clusters are defined as ’uni-sub-carrier’, i.e., each
cluster deals only with one sub-carrier. Then the size of virtual
clusters is dynamically optimized to reduce the inter-cluster
interference leading to increased throughput for the cluster-
edge users.
Furthermore, a local altruistic coalition formation game
(LACF) based dynamic cooperation scheme for spectrum shar-
ing and interference management in hyper-dense C-RAN was
proposed in [59]. The coalition game, formulated in a partition
function form (PFF), also takes into account the externalities
resulting from the mutual interference among the coalitions.
Therefore, under the proposed scheme, social welfare, i.e., the
sum satisfaction of RRHs is maximized in an environment
with heterogeneous traffic. Correspondingly, a local altruistic
utility function is also designed for a RRH to consider the
interest of its own as well as of its neighbours. Whereas, a joint
transmission coordinated multi-point technology is proposed
to mitigate intra-coalition interference. A distributed coalition
formation algorithm based on modified recursive core is then
proposed for obtaining the final stable solution giving some
disjoint coalitions of RRHs. Numerical results identify the
effectiveness of the proposed scheme by outperforming the
classical and non-cooperation counterparts in the perspective
of both social welfare and individual fairness.
On the other hand, several research works on the interfer-
ence mitigation in H-CRANs have been published in recent
time [60]–[64]. For instance, an interference-aware user asso-
ciation scheme for a two-tier H-CRAN consisting of MBSs
and femtocell BSs was proposed in [60]. BSs are enabled
to switch their operation modes for saving energy, decisions
of which are derived in the cloud. Proposed user association
problem maximizes the user aggregate utility, where a concave
logarithmic utility function is used for each user. For reducing
complexity, a heuristic algorithm is proposed and solved by
decomposing it into two steps. First, the user association
problem by maximizing user aggregate utility is solved giving
the optimal set of candidate serving BSs. This step involves
the calculation of selection probability of a BS by a user using
a log-learning method and a pricing policy for BSs to account
the interference experienced by a user. Then, any BS having
no associated user is switched into sleep mode. Superiority of
the proposed algorithm is also validated demonstrating better
effectiveness in large scale networks.
Whereas, [61] presented a cooperative interference mit-
igation scheme using joint transmission (JT) CoMP based
clustering for a H-CRAN with small cells BSs (SBSs). RRHs
are divided into measurement RRHs and coordinated RRHs
clusters, which are determined using a semi-dynamic clus-
tering technique. Measurement RRHs is the set of RRHs,
which share the measurement information such as power
levels and CSI. On the other hand, RRHs in the coordinated
RRHs cluster jointly receive and process data from the user.
Another cooperative scheme for mitigating inter-tier inter-
ference in H-CRAN model consisting of several SBSs and
one MBS was proposed in [62]. This scheme uses a user
weighted probability-based algorithm (UWPA), which divides
the spectrum into shared and dedicated partitions. In shared
spectrum part, both SBSs and the MBS operate, while the
dedicated part is used only by the SBSs. Depending on the
QoS requirements, users are divided into premium, golden and
basic classes. Proposed UWPA algorithm allocates each BS to
the appropriate spectrum partition in order to meet the QoS
requirements.
A contract-based framework for mitigating the inter-tier
interference between RRHs and MBSs in H-CRANs was
proposed in [63]. This framework integrates three different
scheduling schemes, which are implemented by dividing the
downlink transmission interval into three phases. Depending
on the utilization of radio resources by the RRHs and the MBS,
the three phases are named as RRH-alone with UEs-all, RRH-
alone with RUEs-only and RRH-MBS with UEs-separated
schemes. In the proposed contract, BBU cloud works as the
principal and offers a contract to the MBS (the agent). Then
based on an individual rational constraint, the agent decides
whether to accept or reject the contract. Furthermore, optimal
contracts for maximizing the rate-based utility are designed for
both perfect and imperfect CSI scenarios. Resulting optimal
contracts achieve the optimized transmission durations for
the above three phases and the optimized received power
allocation for both the RRH and MBS users.
Finally, authors in [64] proposed an inter-tier interference
suppression framework for H-CRAN by integrating collab-
orative processing and cooperative radio resource allocation
(CRRA). More specifically, interference collaboration (IC) and
BF are proposed to mitigate the interference. Both IC- and
BF-based CRRA optimization models are developed, which
maximize the sum-rates of the RRH users using optimal power
allocation, which is solved by transforming them into con-
vex problems and applying the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT)
conditions. The optimal power allocation algorithms for both
RRHs and the MBS are developed using the transformed
Lagrangian function. In addition, closed-form expressions for
various performance metrics are derived. Presented results
identify that the IC and BF schemes should be adaptively
switched as the superiority of these two schemes depends on
the network settings.
VI. R ESEARCH ON C-RAN E NERGY E FFICIENCY
C-RAN, as a contender for 5G cellular networks, must be
highly energy efficient. This section discusses some of the
recent works focused on the EE of C-RAN [65]–[76].
To increase the EE of a C-RAN with spatially distributed
RRHs, authors in [65] proposed two different optimization
schemes. One is the C-RAN based energy efficient power
allocation (CEEPA) and the other is the low complexity C-
RAN based energy efficient power allocation (LCEEPA). Both
schemes are developed considering multiple access interfer-
ence (MAI) as well as imperfect channel state information
at the transmitter (CSIT). In the proposed schemes, resources
and QoS are taken into account to maximize EE of the system.
The CEEPA scheme helps to allocate power under the desired
QoS and a given outage probability, whereas the LCEEPA
algorithm reduces the computational complexity in solving the
inner loop problem generated in CEEPA scheme. By analyzing
the statistical property of SINR, a closed-form expression of
outage probability for each pair of transceiver is derived. Ran-
dom matrix theory guides to derive deterministic expression of
transmit power per RRH and received SINR, assuming infinite
numbers of UEs and RRHs respectively. Analytical expression
of the outage probability helps to reduce the difficulty in
solving a chance constraint-contained optimization problem.
Numerical analysis proves that the proposed schemes can
effectively save energy.
Another energy efficient resource allocation scheme for
uplink C-RAN using SDN was investigated in [66]. Here, all
mobile terminals (MT) are divided into two groups based on
their transmission requirements. MTs having no transmission
requirements are assigned to the first group and the others
are assigned to the second group. When second group users
communicate with RRHs, some of the users from the first
group can act as relays for them. Thus the proposed energy
efficient uplink resource allocation scheme is formulated by
a multi-user multi-relay multi-network system. On the other
hand, for enhancing both performance and EE of C-RAN, a
joint energy minimization and resource allocation using a non-
convex optimization technique was proposed in [67]. This non-
convex optimization is then reformulated into an equivalent
convex problem based on weighted minimum mean square
error (WMMSE) approach. The iterative algorithm is finally
given to deal with the joint resource allocation in C-RAN with
mobile cloud.
Authors in [68] proposed a low-complexity dynamic re-
source provisioning algorithm considering radio access unit
(RAU) sleep scheduling and virtual machine (VM) consol-
idation to increase EE. Considering these two aspects of
saving energy, a joint resource provisioning (JRP) problem
of the RAUs and the cloud-based computing units (CUs)
is formulated, which is further formulated as a special bin-
packing problem. Number of items and the sizes of items
are adjustable and related to each other in this problem. JRP
problem includes both ON-FF problems of VMs in the CU
pool and the ON-OFF problems of RAUs. Proposed algorithm
dynamically selects the active RAUs and consolidates the VMs
to CUs to solve the JRP problem. VM migrations may reduce
the network service quality. To make tradeoff between energy
saving and VM migration reductions, a context-aware strategy
is also proposed. Simulation results show the effectiveness of
the proposed algorithm and demonstrates its capability to be
used in large networks.
In [69], iterative algorithms for maximizing EE of a down-
link C-RAN were proposed. Here, based on data-sharing and
compression strategies, new problems of EE maximization is
formulated, which involve maximum transmit power at each
RRH, practical constraints on routing, predefined minimum
data rates and fronthaul capacity. At first, the problems are
converted into their epigraph forms and then to equivalent
problems including continuous variables only. The proposed
iterative algorithms can solve the mixed-integer nonlinear
problem formulations, where each iteration solves only one
simple convex program. From numerical results, it is found
that the proposed algorithms enhance EE for both single-hop
and multi-hop networks. Another scheme for improving the EE
of C-RAN by using tunable downlink distance-based power
control mechanism was presented in [70]. Two cases, namely,
half fractional power control (HFPC) and full power control
(FPC) are considered. In the case of FPC, EE increases with
cell radius up to a certain value and then decreases. On the
other hand, for the case of HFPC, EE increases with radius at
first and then get saturated at a higher value. So, a higher EE
can be achieved for higher cell radius in this HFPC case.
Renewable energy source is also being investigated for
operating C-RAN leading to reduced conventional grid power
consumption. In [71], a novel energy efficient network model
named renewable energy powered C-RAN (Re-CRAN) is
proposed, where each network elements are powered by both
brown and renewable energy sources. Proposed network model
consisting of control plane, data plane and energy plane, is
capable to perform joint management of network resources
and energy resources. Energy plane contains distributed energy
 the var
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resources (DERs), distributed energy storage devices (DESDs) 800 2 Cis

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Y.
that the proposed Re-CRAN model is capable to substantially
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in EE. 400 1 Ch
Authors in [72] proposed a framework for designing user-
centric green cloud based C-RAN that incorporates a new [5] C.
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5. Total powerusers
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consider power consumption for both RRH data transmission ratio of house [75]. and energy efficiency vs. activity ratio of
and the fronthaul links to design an energy efficient C-RAN.house users. Wo
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algorithm. QEE metric is also demonstrated as an effectivethan 70% Furthermore, authors in [75] proposed a pre-coding scheme
of that of HetNet. Combining the results in Figs. 3 [10] C
tool for designing an user-centric C-RAN. to increase the EE of a H-CRAN system. A macro/femto
and 4, we can see that C-RAN provides a higher throughput
Several works have been done on the EE aspects of H-even HetNet is considered, where High RRH (H-RRH) acts as MBS pp.
with a smaller transmission power consumption.
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can be transformed and decomposed into three separate sub- H-CRAN, challenges to implement these technologies and
on mitigating the interference is increased. In fact, the BB takes
problems, which can be simultaneously solved at each slot open research issues are discussed in this paper. Massive user
almost 40% of the total power consumption in C-RAN when
with online observation of virtual queues and traffic queues connectivity, increasing severe spectrum scarcity and high pen-
the activity ratio of office users is 0.5, and would consume
determined by the joint optimization results at the previous etration of energy constrained devices may degrade network
slot. Theoretically, it is shown that the proposal can control the performance and QoS in H-CRAN. If NOMA schemes are
throughput-delay performance trade-off maintaining required incorporated in H-RAN, EE can be improved. NOMA assists
EE performance. Simulation results also validate the claim. H-CRAN to provide services to the users using non-orthogonal
Another radio resource management scheme for optimiz- resources. Other advanced technologies such as CR, massive
ing the EE of H-CRAN was proposed in [74]. An energy MIMO, wireless charging, cooperative transmission, mmWave
consumption model is developed, which can characterize the communications and D2D communications are also discussed
energy consumption of RRHs, fronthaul and BBU pool in in this paper. A performance study also shows that the NOMA
H-CRAN. A network EE maximization problem considering enabled H-CRAN can enhance the overall EE greatly.
minimum data rates, maximum transmission power of RRHs,
enhanced RRHs (eRRHs) and the maximum fronthaul capacity VII. R ESEARCH ON D ELAY M INIMIZATION IN C-RAN
is formulated, which is the mixed integer non-linear program- Delay (latency) in 5G cellular networks is another major
ming problem (MLNLP). To solve this MLNLP, an algorithm concern as extremely low latency is required for many appli-
named H-CRAN energy-efficient radio resource management cations. Therefore, research on the minimization of commu-
(HERM) is proposed. Simulation results prove that under nication delay in C-RAN as well as on the delay-guaranteed
dynamic network traffic, HERM can boost the network EE operations of C-RAN is of extreme importance. However, to
by 59%, as compared with a baseline algorithm. In addition, date, there are only few works focusing on the delay issue of
comparison with an energy-efficient radio resource allocation C-RAN available in literature as discussed below [77]–[86].
 Authors in [77] introduced the concept of effective capacity
(EC) theory taking delay into account such that it can be
used for statistical delay-bounded QoS provisioning in ultra
reliable and low-latency communications (URLLC) in C-RAN
systems. EC is defined as the maximum constant transmission
frame arrival rate that a system can support, while satisfying
a maximum delay outage probability constraint. This paper
also proposes comprehensive power allocation schemes for
maximizing the sum EC for both the single-user and multi-user
cases. It is also validated through simulations that by appropri-
ately choosing the delay exponent, the delay outage probability
can be reduced to below 10−9 . Moreover, achievable EC by
proposed algorithm is found to be much higher compared to
other counterparts, especially in the case of stringent delay
requirements.
In [78], a delay-optimal fronthaul allocation scheme for
C-RANs was investigated. An extended form of this work
was later presented in [79]. Proposed optimization problem
in [79] is formulated as an infinite horizon average cost
Markov decision process (MDP). To solve the problem, first,
closed form expressions of approximate priority function and
the associated error bound by using perturbation analysis
are achieved. Then, a low-complexity delay-aware fronthaul
allocation algorithm is proposed for solving the per-stage
optimization problem. Proposed scheme is shown to be asymp-
totically optimal for sufficiently small cross link residual inter-
ference. Moreover, comparison with other baseline algorithms,
proposed one shows significant delay performance gain.
In [80], authors proposed an analytical model for better un-
derstanding the C-RAN model and provided a cost-constrained
resource management framework for delay minimization. In
the analytical model, dynamic resource sharing with balanced
fair resource allocation technique is implemented. Perfor-
mance comparison between C-RAN and traditional RAN
(T-RAN) is also provided and the conditions when the C-
RAN outperforms T-RAN are identified. For the comparison
purpose, multiplexing gain is defined as the throughput ratio
of C-RAN to T-RAN while keeping the network size, traffic
load and resource budget same for both the cases. It is seen
that C-RAN performs better than T-RAN with homogeneous
load, when C-RAN is more cost effective. C-RAN also shows
considerably better performance under heterogeneous load.
Therefore, although the performance advantage of C-RAN
over T-RAN depends on the network size, traffic character-
istics and resource cost parameters, it is possible to design
a C-RAN system that outperforms T-RAN architecture by
maintaining sufficient conditions.
Furthermore, [81] proposed a new method to minimize
the processing delay of various services by utilizing queue
concept to optimize BBU selection. A triple layer queuing
network is used for characterizing each request of service.
All incoming traffic is first controlled by a dispatcher queue
unit which chooses the convenient BBU for the operation,
which is modeled as an M/M/1 queue. The equivalent VMs
of BBUs are also modeled as M/M/1 queues. The task in
each queue is done as first-in-first-out (FIFO) basis and the
buffer length is assumed infinite. The main idea of the work
is to optimize the BBU selection process at the dispatcher unit
for achieving minimum response time while meeting resource
constraints. To achieve short response time, authors resolve the
execution rate at the dispatcher and each BBU, while maintain
the stability and resource cost constraints. Proposed scheme
offers lowest response time than resource-based or random
selection scheme. At the same time, total throughput is also
the highest for the proposed system. Therefore, this method
can be implemented in the C-RAN BBU pool to reduce the
system response time by two to three times, while providing
higher throughput.
On the other hand, with the aim of achieving ultra-latency
communication in H-CRAN, a theoretical framework as well
as some case studies were presented in [82]. It is pointed
out that for achieving millisecond-level latency over H-CRAN,
latency in the radio access, optimization computation, routing
and paging must be reduced. In light of this, this paper
proposes and investigates a H-CRAN system with open-loop
radio access reducing latency in the air interface, information-
bridled resource optimization reducing latency of radio re-
source optimization, and social data cache-based routing/
paging scheme reducing latency in the backhaul packet for-
warding. Several new research issues are also summarised in
this paper.
A dynamic stochastic resource optimization problem with
the objective of efficient tradeoff between EE and queue delay
constraint in H-CRANs was investigated in [83]. A easily im-
plementable Lyapunov optimization approach requiring only
the local information at the transmitter is used for solving the
problem. Besides, for obtaining near-optimal system stability
by avoiding traffic congestion, an EE optimization problem
subject to the power consumption of RRHs and interference
constraints is also investigated, which is then solved using
WMMSE approach. Considered EE utility function is defined
as the weighted sum of transmit rate and total energy con-
sumption in RRHs. Numerical results demonstrate an efficient
tradeoff between time averaged EE and queue backlogs.
Another work on the latency issue in H-CRAN was pre-
sented in [84]. This paper proposed a proactive network
association mechanism of intelligent mobile machines (IMMs)
by taking CoMP into consideration in H-CRAN systems.
The main objective of the paper is to develop delay-aware
’vehicle’-centric approach for fully exploiting the advantages
of CoMP and at the same time, prevent the resulting signaling
overheads to improve the delay performance. Considered H-
CRAN architecture consists of multiple access points (APs)
providing smaller coverage and a high power node (HPN)
providing ubiquitous coverage. Two scenarios, namely, with
and without the assistance of the HPN, are considered. For the
first scenario without HPN, IMMs can’t access HPN and only
rely on the distributed APs. Whereas for the second scenario,
an IMM can select either APs or HPN for better service. Lya-
punov optimization theory, effective bandwidth and capacity
theory are used for developing the mathematical solution of the
association mechanism. Capability of the proposed association
mechanism in guaranteeing the queueing delay performance as
well as the delay violation probability is demonstrated through
numerical results.
Finally, caching at the wireless edge is an efficient technique
for reducing latency [85], [86]. Cache can be deployed at
both BBU pool and RRHs of C-RAN. In light of this,
paper [85] proposed a cache enabled C-RAN with the nec-
essary strategy that reduces the transmission and handover
latency for mobile users. A mobility aware cache management
controller (MACMC) for the BBU pool is designed, which
consists of a mobility estimator, a bandwidth estimator, a user
video-segment-requests table (UVSRT) and a cache scheduler.
MACMC utilizes the computation and storage resources in C-
RAN, and makes cache decisions for both the BBU pool and
RRHs. A proactive caching algorithm, named MAPCaching, is
also proposed, which can significantly reduce delay compared
to the two other benchmark strategies discussed in the paper.
It is also identified that MAPCaching algorithm can also
outperform these two benchmark schemes easily even in the
case of large number of users and provide the lowest delay.
VIII. R ESEARCH ON C-RAN S ECURITY
Despite the incredible advantages of C-RAN over the tradi-
tional networks, C-RAN can be vulnerable to a number of new
threats in addition to the existing security issues of any wire-
less cellular networks. However, from our extensive search, we
have found only few research works specifically conducted on
the security issues of C-RAN systems as discussed below in
this section [7], [13], [87]–[93].
The three-layer based C-RAN architecture preseneted in [7]
placed the security functions in the top most plane, i.e., in
the service plane. Functions of this security block include
the protection of the infrastructure and data from invasion,
providing identity recognition and access control. On the other
hand, a thorough review on the potential security threats and
attacks in the context of C-RAN corresponding to these three
logic layers was investigated in [13]. Besides, this paper also
presents a framework of security and trust requirements of
C-RAN. Access control to resources to fight against primary
user emulation attack (PUEAs), privacy intrusions and CR
node impersonation attacks; robustness for overcoming the
security threats caused by jamming, denial-of-service (DoS) or
distributed DoS (DDoS) attacks; confidentiality, integrity and
availability of user data; strict authentication for overcoming
CR node impersonation attacks and primary user imperson-
ation attacks; privacy of operators and end users; trust manage-
ment among the collaborating operators; and non-repudiation
to overcome the threats caused by impersonation attacks and
radio spectrum attacks are some of the security requirements
as summarized by the authors. It is also pointed out that as
C-RAN involves cloud computing, security issues applicable
for any cloud computing system are equally applicable for C-
RAN. Moreover, this paper includes an intuitive discussion on
the probable solutions and research directions for the identified
security threats including their strength and weakness.
Another holistic work on the study of security challenges
in C-RAN based 5G cellular networks was presented in [87].
Details on the nature of various attacks as well as the state-of-
the-art security solutions in the context of C-RAN involving
advanced technologies, such as HetNets, D2D communica-
tions, massive MIMO, SDNs and IoT are summarized. Then,
a new security architecture for C-RAN based 5G cellular
networks is proposed by the authors. Proposed architecture
separates data plane and control plane, where the data plane
is programmable in a flexible way. Four security domains,
namely, network access security, network domain security, user
domain security and application domain security, with specific
functions are defined. Finally, as a case study, a handover
procedure as well as a signaling load scheme is presented
for demonstrating the advantages of the proposed security
architecture.
A work on the physical layer security analysis with a
tradeoff between security and reliability performance for the
downlink C-RAN under the presence of a eavesdropper was
presented in [88]. The analysis involves the selection of
optimal RRHs for a realistic scenario with Rayleigh fading
channels and imperfect CSI. More specifically, this paper
proposes a three-phase transmission scheme and uses the linear
MMSE estimation method for obtaining the CSI. Then, based
on the estimated CSI and the statistics of channel estimation
errors, closed form expressions of both outage probability and
intercept probability are derived for analyzing the reliability
and security performance respectively. Notably, a degradation
of intercept probability with the increasing number of RRHs
is found. Moreover, an opposite trend of the two probabilities
is identified with the increasing number of training symbols.
On the other hand, a study on the physical layer security in
the downlink of two-tier H-CRAN systems was presented in
[89]. To quantify the performance, closed-form expression of
secrecy transmission capacity for K-tier H-CRAN is derived.
Moreover, two different security strategies based on eavesdrop-
per neutralization region to protect the target RRU user against
eavesdropping are developed. Strategies are formulated based
on the assumption that the RRHs are capable to physically
inspect its neighboring area for distinguishing the legitimate
receiver from the eavesdropper(s). If any eavesdropper is de-
tected, a RRH blocks the wiretap channel by sending jamming
signal, or the user will switch to its closest MBS. Simulation
results demonstrate an enhanced secrecy performance though
it depends on the system parameters.
On the other hand, authors in [90] presented a novel channel
quantization method for improving the security enhancement
of C-RAN in an environment with limited CSI. Probabilities of
conventional quantization method in exacerbating the leakage
of privacy information in eavesdropping environment moti-
vates the authors to propose this alternative method. First,
a secrecy-oriented criterion is developed for generating a
codebook. A weighted Voronoi diagram is then formulated
on the complex Grassmann manifold. Finally, the quantization
codebook is built up by using the proposed vector quantization
algorithm in an iterative way. The key observation from
the results is that by exploiting the statistical distribution
of the channel matrices of both the legitimate user and the
eavesdropper, a win-win situation can be created with an
improved secrecy-rate gains. Furthermore, authors in [91]
investigated the impact of path-loss effects on the uplink
secrecy of C-RANs under the presence of eavesdropper RRH.
To quantify the secrecy, closed form expression of strictly
positive secrecy capacity (SPSC) is developed considering
Fig. 3. The convergence of Algorithm 2 under different beamforming Fig. 5. The comparison of different fronthaul solutions.
initialization policies, for different maximum transmit power.
two-dimensional homogeneous Poisson point process (PPP)
distributed RRHs and Rayleigh fading. Fading is found to
have more significant impact on the secrecy than that of the
deployed device intensity.
Whereas, a radio resource management algorithm for the
security of C-RAN system enhanced with CR was proposed
in [92]. In this system model, BBU cloud stores the spectrum
occupancy information and facilitates the access of spectrum
opportunities for secondary users (SUs). In particular, pro-
posed algorithm allocates radio resources to SUs by matching
the locations of SUs with the locations of the idle frequency
bands. Thus the algorithm helps to avoid interference from
SUs to primary users and provides security in CR networks
(CRNs). The algorithm is implemented in the cloud computing
facilities using the real-time processing model Storm, which
dynamically partitions the geographical area according to the
SU density. Parallel computation facilities in the cloud facili-
tates the implementation of the proposed algorithm. Simulation
Fig. 4. ESEresults arenumber
versus presented to demonstrate
of iterations with differentthe maximum
performance of the Fig. 6.Fig.ESE
transmit 5: versus
ESE performance
maximum allowedwith the transmit
transmit power,power [96].different
, with
power, for proposed
18 UEs.
secure radio resource management algorithm. schemes.
Moreover, it is apparent that generic C-RAN would face
proper
from balance
D-RAN can between the capacity
be compensated of the fronthaul
in approximately and the
10 years,
speed than greatESdifficulty
does. Inin addition,
providing aanhigherauthenticity
sum ratefor can
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In addition, whereas the partial availability of the optical infrastructure
achieveding withthea service
larger security
maximum andallowed
device creditability.
transmit power.
resource accessing
The maximum ESE can be canachieved
also be by expensive. In light
the proposal, of this, As
whose
can the fronthaul
reduce consumptiontime
this compensation can not be effectively
considerably. reduced
Moreover,
a blockchain-based trusted authentication (BTA) architecture by optimizing
densely EE
deployed or SE,
cells ESE
provide can
morebe regarded
cost as
efficient an enhance-
migration
performance has been evaluated in Fig. 4. ESE varies with the
for C-RAN based 5G cellular networks over fiber network ment of EE/SE,
as less time iswhich takes
required to SE, power and
compensate the fronthaul
migrationcostcost.into
number of iterations of the outer loop under different maxi- account. For instance,
For for the
comparison,replacement
this of
part D-RAN
considers using
the microcells
performance
was proposed in [93]. A blockchain-based anonymous access
mum transmit
(BAA)powerschemefor 18 UEs.
is outlined for theNote that the
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of BTA architec- of requires
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The iteration
ticationalgorithms convergeagreement
through a tripartite to stableamong pointsthewithin a weyears.
equipment focuses on the effect of the fronthaul constraints on the
few iterations for considered
manufacturer, number operators.
users and network of transmit antennas.
Evaluation of the ESE Whereas, a work on the minimization of system cost in C-
and SE, and provides three types of data rates for
Moreover, the maximum transmit power have a significant wireless fronthaul:
proposed architecture on an enhanced SDN testbed validates RAN system under the practical constraint of limited fronthaul
capacity was presented in [95].2 bps/Hz,
In the proposed 4model, bps/Hz,
BBUand
its
impact on ESE. trusted access capability with low cost.
10 bps/Hz.
pool of C-RAN is assumed as a collection of VMs, while each
Fig.
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depictstothat the impact
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with multiple maximumin the transmit
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B. SE and ESE IX. Comparisons
R ESEARCH ON S YSTEM C OST M INIMIZATION power
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capacity to of
icantly higher CAPEX and OPEX for the network operators. define the system
son among the ESE performances, in which hybrid fronthaul wireless fronthaul. The baseline resource allocation scheme cost, which is then minimized. Authors then
solution Therefore,
is the onecost thatminimization
adopted ininthis future cellular
article. networks
Despite formulate to
thehas is proposed a mixed-integer
maximize thenonlinear
weightedprogramming (MINLP)
sum rate (bps/Hz) with
become a major concern. C-RAN is expected to reduce both for jointly optimizing the VM activation and sparse BF in
fronthaul solution, the other settings of the three scenarios the power and fronthaul capacity constraints. The proposed
CAPEX and OPEX as discussed earlier. However, there exists order to minimize the system cost. MINLP problem is then
are exactly the same, which has been proposed earlier in this algorithm’s ESE under the same wireless fronthaul constraints
only a handful number of research works conducted on the converted to an equivalent problem by adjusting the value
section. development
As it can beof clearly observed,
architectures hybrid fronthaul
and algorithms can increases
with quantitative and vector
of the price approaches to the tooptimal
and reducing value with
a sub-problem. The the
sub-ris-
lead to aanalysis
better forESE lowering cost in C-RAN systems [40], [94]–[100]. problem is solved using integer search (IS) approach and a the
performance since it helps to achieve a ing maximum transmit power. The baseline scheme has
First of all, with the increasing interest in C-RAN tech- joint optimization with integer recovery (JR) approach as well.
nology, the cost of migration from the traditional distributed Closed form solution for the JR approach is also derived. It
RAN system (D-RAN) to C-RAN is a crucial issue for proper is found that IR and JR show better performance with lower
justification as it involves huge investment for new infrastruc- system cost than decoupled-layer algorithm. Numerical results
tures. In light of this, a study on the migration cost of C- also prove the superiority of the proposed schemes in terms of
RAN utilizing TCO defined as the sum of CAPEX and OPEX robustness as well as lowering system cost than the benchmark
was presented in [94]. A digital unit (DU) pool placement algorithms.
optimization problem using mixed integer linear programming As the cost of fronthaul in C-RAN contributes a signif-
(MILP) for minimizing the TCO is formulated. Numerical icant amount of cost, traditional SE and EE is not capable
results are evaluated and presented under different deployment to directly take the impact of diverse costs into account.
scenarios. It is found that the migration cost depends mainly Therefore, a novel cost-efficient resource allocation scheme
on cell size and the presence of optical infrastructure. If optical for C-RAN system by considering the cost of different types
infrastructure does not exist, then the migration cost of C-RAN of fronthaul links (e.g., fiber, copper, radio, microwave and
mmWave links) was proposed in [96]. This paper outlined
a new performance metric named as enhanced economical
spectral efficiency (ESE) by combining the cost of coexisting
heterogeneous (wired and wireless) fronthaul links and the
traditional EE. Here, ESE is defined as the ratio of effective
system throughput to energy consumption weighted by the
cost coefficients of fronthaul links. Then an ESE optimization
problem under the transmit power and fronthaul capacity
constraints is formulated, which is non-convex. Therefore,
the problem is transformed into an equivalent optimization
subproblem realized by a iterative dimension search method
and solved by using the WMMSE approach. Simulation re-
sults validate ESE as a better metric for evaluating C-RAN
performance. Proposed algorithm also provides improved ESE
performance over a benchmark algorithm as shown in Fig. 5.
In [97], authors provided an architecture by incorporating a
joint cost-effective resource allocation algorithm between C-
RAN and MCC system. This paper assumes that the mobile
cloud is responsible for the computational intensive task, while
the BBU pool is in charge of returning the execution results
to the UEs through RRHs. Thus in the proposed model,
operator’s cost is addressed in two parts: cost of executing the
task in the mobile cloud and the cost of transmitting the result
to users. Correspondingly, a joint cost minimization problem is
formulated, which is NP-hard non-convex. By converting it to
the equivalent WMMSE and using an iterative algorithm, this
joint cost minimization problem is solved. Resulting algorithm
minimizes mobile operators’ cost leading to higher profit,
while the task time requirement constraint is maintained.
Furthermore, a dynamic resource management mechanism
for the centralized computing resources in the BBU cloud was
investigated in [98]. The objective of the mechanism is to
improve the cost effectiveness by increasing the revenue with
minimal computing server operations cost. Thus the resource
allocation problem is formulated as a linear programming
problem of a combination of NP-complete knapsack and
bin packing problems. Two-phase approximations are then
used for solving the problem by finding the required number
of active computing servers. Numerical results illustrate the
effectiveness of the proposed mechanism in increasing revenue
by reducing operating cost.
On the other hand, a complementary architecture for C-
RAN along with an investigation on the tradeoffs among
area spectrum efficiency (ASE), mean delay and system cost
was presented in [99]. Proposed architecture exploits the
advantages of both C-RAN and traditional BSs, and is modeled
combining the Neyman–Scott cluster process and the Poisson
hole process. Two different transmission modes, namely, RRH-
selection mode and the cooperation mode, are applied in
combination, while the ratio of the number of sub-frames in
these two modes can be exploited for further optimizing the
ASE, delay and cost. Simulation models as well as closed form
expressions are developed for evaluating tradeoffs. System
cost per unit area includes the energy cost as well as the
deployment cost of BBU pools, RRHs, fronthaul links and
the traditional BSs. Presented results indicate that the cost is
always positively correlated to the ASE.
A theoretic framework for quantitatively evaluating the
deployment cost of H-CRAN was developed in [100]. The
cost model used in this papers incorporates the costs of BSs,
data center, and the equipment in the microwave and the
optical fronthaul links. Variants of Poisson point process is
used for modeling the different deployment scenarios of H-
CRAN systems. Then, the framework along with a complexity
model for computing the information processing costs is used
for comparing the deployment cost of H-CRAN with that
of a traditional LTE network. Using this framework, this
paper shows that H-CRAN has approximately 10% to 15%
less CAPEX per square kilometer. Savings comes from the
adaptability of H-CRAN to the varying traffic load and the
fact that the required number of processors in BBU pool does
not increase linearly with the traffic load. It is also identified
that the deployment cost of H-CRAN largely depends on
the intensities of user and data centers as well as on the
type of fronthaul technologies. In particular, use of a mix
of fronthaul technologies is found less costly than using just
one type of technology. Another quantitative cost analysis for
identifying whether the centralized, distributed or hybrid C-
RAN has lower TCO was investigated in [40]. Numerical
results concluded that a hybrid C-RAN, where some functions
are centralized and some are distributed, has much lower TCO
than the other twos.
X. O PEN I SSUES AND R ESEARCH D IRECTIONS
As a candidate technology for 5G cellular networks, C-
RAN has drawn huge interests from the telecommunication
industries, mobile network operators and researchers due to
its some remarkable advantages including reduced CAPEX
and OPEX, improved network performance and management,
easy upgrade and expansion, friendly multi-standard support
and enhanced scalability. However, there exists various critical
challenges in implementing C-RAN based cellular networks.
Research in C-RAN is still very much in its infancy and a
great deal of research effort is required for making substantial
improvements in C-RAN for using it as a practical commu-
nication system. A rational justification is also necessary to
be established in favor of C-RAN by taking the available
fronthaul network capacity, compression schemes and virtu-
alization cost of BBU resources into account.
First of all, C-RAN has to be designed so that it can
meet the stringent requirements of the envisaged 5G cellular
networks. Therefore, high throughput, ultra reliability, delay
and cost minimization, and supporting a massive number of
user devices are the key research challenges in C-RAN. The
fronthaul links between the RRHs and the BBU cloud have
a crucial impact on the performance of C-RAN. These links
have to have high capacity and low latency. Hence, fronthaul-
aware efficient signal quantization/compression techniques,
large-scale pre-coding/decoding, MAC schemes, and resource
allocation and scheduling mechanisms are required to optimize
network SE, EE and diverse QoS requirements. As a large
number of RRHs access the BBU pool, NOMA can be a good
candidate for MAC. Moreover, cooperative clustering of RRHs
with cluster-based access of the BBU cloud may decrease the
burden on fronthaul as well as reduce latency, which requires
careful investigation.
 For optimal EE of C-RAN, instantaneous traffic-aware oper-
ation of RRHs and scheduling of BBUs in the cloud is highly
significant. Thus, in addition to the existing resource schedul-
ing algorithms, enhanced algorithms considering clustering
of both RRHs and BBUs in the cloud are to be developed.
Efficient strategies for switching unnecessary RRHs and BBUs
into sleep mode is also essential for further improving EE. On
the other hand, integration of energy harvesting technology in
both RRHs and BBU pool can be considered for reducing the
grid electricity consumption. Optimal energy sharing mecha-
nisms among the RRHs and transmit power control consid-
ering tempo-spatial diversity in renewable energy generation
and CSI availability, while satisfying the QoS requirements
can also be explored.
On the other hand, mobility management through location
management and handoff management in C-RAN can be cru-
cial for delivering services to the users in a timely and reliable
manner. Tracking users’ location and handoff management
with guaranteed connection continuity in C-RAN is challeng-
ing as users can switch too frequently among the RRHs.
These functions become even more complex for multi-cloud
C-RANs and in scenario with flexible resource scheduling
among RRHs. Moreover, the centralized nature of C-RAN can
impose additional latency in performing these functions for a
large number of devices. Therefore, formulation of distributed
solutions for mobility management merits substantial research.
Various advanced technologies, such as massive MIMO,
BF, CoMP, CR, mmWave and M2M communications, full
duplexing, NOMA, carrier aggregation, SDN and coopera-
tive relaying can also be integrated with C-RAN for further
enhancing the performance. Only a few works on C-RAN
by incorporating some of these technologies are available to
date. Therefore, an extensive research effort is required in
developing and analysis of efficient and optimal schemes for
exploiting these techniques in C-RAN with the consideration
of traffic distribution, heterogeneous energy sources, diversity
in renewable energy generation, available radio resources and
QoS requirements. Moreover, IoT is a reality, which will be a
part of future 5G networks. C-RAN has to find a way how to
support these massive number of IoT devices in its framework,
which is yet to be explored.
C-RAN inherits the security threats experienced by both
the cloud computing systems and wireless communication
systems. Moreover, due to the centralized operation of BBU
cloud, one-point failure is a major risk in C-RAN and hence,
the security of C-RAN has to be strictly maintained. With
the potential of large number of intelligent devices and nodes
having self-configuring capabilities to be connected in C-
RAN makes it even more vulnerable. In such scenarios,
design of novel efficient physical layer security techniques
by exploiting the physical characteristics of wireless channels
can be very effective in C-RAN. Moreover, to date, a limited
number of works, mainly on the physical layer security of
C-RAN, have been reported in literature, which demands a
lot more investigation. Therefore, development of universal C-
RAN security frameworks, secure authentication mechanisms,
user privacy preservation mechanisms, and trust mechanisms
among operators as well as between users and operators are
the key areas of great importance.
On the other hand, multi-tier H-CRANs incorporates cells
of diverse sizes and may involve both wired and wireless
fronthaul links. Existence of heterogeneous fronthaul links
opens new research problems of designing various algorithms
and schemes by jointly accounting the wired links and wireless
links. For instance, resource allocation and scheduling, inter-
tier interference management, CoMP transmission involving
multi-tier RRHs, etc. become even more challenging, which
needs substantial attention. Designs considering multi-cloud
H-CRANs, where each cloud corresponds to a subset of RRHs,
can also be interesting for future research.
Furthermore, now-a-days, due to the better visualization of
user satisfaction through QoE metric, network operators are
interested in this approach of network provisioning instead
of traditional QoS-based. However, no comprehensive QoE
model for C-RAN has been defined so far. QoE assurance
model for C-RAN and QoE guaranteed C-RAN design can be
a good area to explore.
In summary, C-RAN is going to transform the traditional
distributed cellular RAN into a centralized architecture, which
has brought a whole new dimension in the cellular system.
From our extensive literature survey in C-RAN, it can be
concluded that this field requires a huge effort in conducting
thorough, comprehensive and rigorous investigations before
practically realizing C-RAN systems.
XI. C ONCLUSIONS
In this paper, we have surveyed, discussed and summarised
the most recent works on the C-RAN systems. Unlike the
other existing surveys focusing on a specific area of C-
RAN, this survey has looked on the C-RAN in a holistic
way for covering all the major research areas. In particular,
we have conducted extensive survey on the state-of-the-art
research works conducted on C-RAN and then summarised
them by categorizing into seven sections, namely, architec-
tures, throughput enhancement, interference management, EE,
latency, security and system cost reduction. We have also
presented the open issues and future research directions in
these focused areas. Summaries of all the articles reviewed in
this paper are also presented in Tables I - VII. Although there
are various proposed architectures for C-RAN, our survey have
identified that there are only few works in all the other areas
covered in this paper. Therefore, research in C-RAN is far from
maturity, and hence a huge research effort is required before
finally standardizing and implementing C-RAN in practice.
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 Md. Farhad Hossain received his Ph.D. from the
School of Electrical and Information Engineering
of the University of Sydney, Australia in 2014.
He completed his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Electrical
and Electronic Engineering (EEE) from Bangladesh
University of Engineering and Technology (BUET),
Dhaka, Bangladesh in 2003 and 2005 respectively.
Currently, he holds a position of Professor in the
Department of EEE, BUET. He also works as an
electrical and electronic engineering consultant. Dr.
Hossain has published over 60 refereed articles in
highly prestigious journals and conference proceedings. His research interests
include C-RAN, green cellular networks, sensor networks, network archi-
tectures and protocols designs, underwater communications and smart grid
communications. He has been serving as TPC member, and reviewer in many
international journals and conferences. He is currently a member of IEEE and
IEEE communication society.

Ayman Uddin Mahin received his B.Sc. degree in

Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) from
Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology
(AUST), Dhaka, Bangladesh in 2016. He is currently
pursuing his M.Sc. degree in EEE at Bangladesh
University of Engineering and Technology (BUET),
Dhaka, Bangladesh. He is also working as a lecturer
in the Department of EEE of AUST. His research in-
terests include C-RAN, 5G cellular networks, smart
grid communications and Internet of things (IoT).

Topojit Debnath received his B.Sc. in Electrical

and Electronic Engineering (EEE) from Bangladesh
University of Engineering and Technology (BUET),
Dhaka, Bangladesh. He is currently pursuing his
Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering at the Uni-
versity of California, Riverside, USA. His research
interests include study and simulation of nano elec-
tronics and photonics devices, mobile cellular com-
munication system and 5G network technology.

Farjana Binte Mosharrof received her B.Sc. de-

gree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE)
from Ahsanullah University of Science and Tech-
nology (AUST), Dhaka, Bangladesh in 2016. She
is currently pursuing her M.Sc. degree in EEE at
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Tech-
nology (BUET), Dhaka, Bangladesh. Her current
research interests include C-RAN based 5G cellu-
lar networks, energy efficient cellular networks and
smart grid communications.

Khondoker Ziaul Islam is an Assistant Profes-

sor in the Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Department at Bangladesh University of Business
and Technology (BUBT), Dhaka, Bangladesh. He
received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from Islamic
University of Technology (IUT), Bangladesh in
Electrical Engineering, and now doing Ph.D. from
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Tech-
nology (BUET), Dhaka, Bangladesh. His current
research interests include C-RAN, 5G cellular net-
works, radio resource management and radio plan-
ning for cellular networks.
 TABLE I: A summary of the reviewed papers on the C-RAN architectures

Research References Solution Approach Performance Metric Main Feature

Area
Architecture [7] Theoretical framework Sum-rate (bit/s/Hz) Split of C-RAN in three logical layers - physical,
and case study control and service planes
[9] Survey on the architec- Per-cell sum-rate (bits/channel use), Three different architectures - fully centralized, par-
ture, key techniques and data rate (Mbps) and delay per UE (sec) tially centralized and hybrid
future work
[16] Theoretical framework Sum-rate (bps/Hz) Single cloud and multi-cloud based H-CRAN archi-
and case study tectures
[29] Optimal fronthaul allo- Net benefit of the transmission (bits/cu) NOMA enabled C-RAN with reduced cost, in-
cation optimization and efficiency of fronthaul usage creased efficiency and throughput
[31] Theoretical framework N/A Two different architectures - fully centralized and
partially centralized
[32] Optimization and nu- Sum-rate (bit/s/Hz) RRHs clustering based C-RAN with necessary al-
merical analysis gorithm
[33] Numerical modeling and Aggregate utility C-RAN with BF for maximizing the aggregate user
analysis utility
[35] Theoretical framework Throughput (Mbps) A new H-CRAN architecture having PUs and SUs
and case study
[36] Theoretical framework Transmission power of OLTs (Watt) PON based architecture with power over fiber hav-
and case study and QoE value ing reduced transmission power of OLTs, while
satisfying QoE level
[38] Theoretical framework Traffic satisfaction (%) FluidNet: An architecture with higher traffic satis-
and numerical analysis faction and reduced computing resource usage
[39] Theoretical framework N/A CONCERT: an architecture with three distinguished
planes - data, control and software-defined service
planes
[40] Theoretical framework TCO A low cost hybrid architecture H-RAN
and numerical analysis
[41] Numerical modeling and Outage probability, throughput mmWave enabled C-RAN
analysis (bits/Hz) and latency (sec)
[42] Numerical modeling and Probability of coalition formation and RRHs coalition formation based C-RAN with nec-
analysis network througput (Mbps) essary algorithm
[43] Theoretical framework SE (bps/Hz) Massive MIMO enabled with scalable and flexible
and case study H-CRAN with three logical layers - infrastructure
layer, control layer and application layer

TABLE II: A summary of the reviewed papers on the throughput enhancement in C-RAN

Research References Solution Approach Performance Metric Main Feature

Area
Throughput [44] Optimization and nu- Achievable sum-rate (bit/channel) Cooperation based C-RAN has higher throughput
enhancement merical analysis than that in ’without cooperation’
[45] Numerical modeling and Throughput (bits/s/m2 ) and EE S-FFR and massive MIMO enabled H-CRAN
analysis (bits/Joule)
[46] Numerical modeling and Delay violation probability and average An interference-aware a two-step scheduling algo-
analysis throughput (packets/user/frame) rithm for delay sensitive applications
[47] Greedy algorithms and Throughput (Mbps) Resource scheduling scheme for NOMA enabled C-
numerical analysis RAN
[48] Coalition game Throughput (kbps) Mode selection and resource allocation scheme in a
approach uplink D2D enabled C-RAN
[49] Optimization using Sum-rate (bps/Hz) Coordinated scheduling and power control in C-
graph theoretical RAN
approach
[50] Simulation based Throughput (Mbps) TAJS resource virtualization algorithm
[51] Deterministic optimiza- Throughput (bit/s) Dynamic C-RAN operation framework for MCC
tion framework with outdated CSI
[52] Joint optimization Fronthaul rate (Mbps) and end-to-end Joint power control and fronthaul rate allocation for
rate (bps/Hz) OFDMA-based C-RAN
 TABLE III: A summary of the reviewed papers on the interference management in C-RAN

Research References Solution Approach Performance Metric Main Feature

Area
Interference [54] Optimization by formu- Normalized MSE A CS-based joint NBI mitigation and user data
management lating a sparse MLE recovery technique
problem
[55] Numerical modeling and MSE and BER Distributed baseband signal compressive quantiza-
analysis tion and PIC for multi-antenna C-RAN
[56] Gradient optimization BER Optimize both downlink and uplink transmissions
for mitigating IUI in TR based C-RAN
[57] Optimal and heuristic Number of active BBUs, throughput per RRH clustering formulated as a set partitioning
solutions user (Mbps) and EE (Mbps/W) problem
[58] Heuristic algorithm Outage probability, throughput (Mbps) Dynamic clustering of VBSs based on the locations
and system SE (bps/Hz/cell) of users
[59] Heuristic algorithm Social welfare, sum-rate (Mb/s) and LACF game based dynamic cooperation scheme
fairness
[60] Heuristic algorithm Throughput (Mbps) Interference-aware user association scheme for H-
CRAN
[61] Theoretical framework SE of edge users (bps/cell/Hz) Cooperative interference mitigation scheme using
and case study JT CoMP based Semi-dynamic clustering for H-
CRAN
[62] Heuristic algorithm Throughput (Mbps) Cooperative interference mitigation scheme using
UWPA for H-CRAN
[63] Heuristic algorithms Sum-rate (bps) Contract-based framework for mitigating inter-tier
interference in H-CRANs
[64] Sum-rate optimization Outage probability, BER and aggre- Collaborative processing and cooperative resource
gated rate (bps/Hz) allocation in H-CRAN

TABLE IV: A summary of the reviewed papers for enhancing EE in C-RAN

Research References Solution Approach Performance Metric Main Feature

Area
Energy [65] Optimization schemes EE (bits/joule/Hz) and SE (bps/Hz) Outage-aware resource allocation scheme for energy
efficiency efficient C-RAN under interference and imperfect
CSI at the transmitter
[66] Optimization scheme EE (bit/Hz/J) SDN-based user cooperation and resource allocation
scheme for uplink C-RAN
[67] Non-convex Energy consumption (J) Joint energy minimization and resource allocation
optimization based in C-RAN with MCC
on WMMSE
[68] Heuristic algorithm Energy consumption (kWh) Dynamic resource provisioning algorithm consider-
ing RAU sleep scheduling and VM consolidation
[69] Iterative algorithm EE (Mb/J) Data-sharing and compression strategies based EE
maximization
[70] Heuristic approach EE (nats/Hz/J) and per user achievable Tunable downlink distance-based power control
average rate (nats/sec/Hz) mechanism
[71] Convex optimization Energy consumption (W) Incorporation of renewable energy sources in C-
RAN
[72] Optimization scheme QEE Introduced the new performance metric QEE
[73] Optimization schemes EE (bits/Hz/joule), delay (slots) and Energy efficient joint congestion control and re-
throughput (kbits/slot) source scheduling in H-CRAN
[74] Optimization scheme Network EE (Mbits/s/Joule) Energy efficient radio resource management scheme
for H-CRAN
[75] Optimization scheme Normalized transmit power, power con- Pre-coding scheme to increase EE of H-CRAN
sumption (W) and per-user throughput
(bps/Hz)
[76] Designing framework EE (bits/Hz/Joule), transmit power (W) EE analysis of NOMA enabled H-CRAN
and case study and total rate (b/s/Hz)
 TABLE V: A summary of the reviewed papers focusing delay in C-RAN

Research References Solution Approach Performance Metric Main Feature

Area
Delay [77] Theoretical framework EC (b/s/Hz) and delay outage Introduced the concept of EC and delay-constrained
and case studies power allocation schemes
[78], [79] Optimization Average delay (sec) An optimal delay-aware fronthaul allocation scheme
[80] Minimization approach Average delay and multiplexing gain Dynamic resource sharing technique for delay min-
imization
[81] Minimization using System response time (ms) and Optimal BBU selection mechanism for the mini-
queuing concept throughput (Mbps) mization of the execution delay of user services
[82] Theoretical framework Latency and SE A low-latency H-CRAN architecture incorporat-
and case studies ing open-loop radio access, information-bridled re-
source optimization and social data cache-based
routing/paging
[83] Lyapunov optimization Average queue length (bit/Hz) and EE Tradeoff between EE and delay constraints in H-
approach CRAN
[84] Optimization Delay (sec) and violation probability A delay guaranteed proactive network association
mechanism for IMMs in H-CRAN
[85] Heuristic algorithm Delay (sec) and cache hit rate (%) A mobility-aware proactive caching strategy for C-
RAN

TABLE VI: A summary of the reviewed papers on C-RAN security

Research References Solution Approach Performance Metric Main Feature

Area
Security [7] Theoretical framework N/A A new C-RAN architecture placing security func-
tions in the top most service plane
[13] Literature survey N/A Review on the C-RAN security challenges and
research issues
[87] Theoretical modeling in- N/A A new security architecture for C-RAN having four
cluding a survey security domains
[88] Numerical modeling and Intercept and outage probabilities A three-phase transmission scheme and optimal
analysis RRH selection approach with a tradeoff between
security and reliability performance
[89] Closed form expressions Secrecy transmission capacity (b/s/Hz) Physical layer security strategies for the downlink
of two-tier H-CRAN
[90] Weighted-Voronoi- Secrecy sum-rate (bit/s/Hz) and secrecy A novel channel quantization method for security in
diagram based approach rate loss (bit/s/Hz) downlink C-RAN with limited CSI
[91] Closed form expressions SPSC Analysis of path-loss effects on the uplink secrecy
of C-RANs in the presence of eavesdropper RRH
[92] Optimization Total benefit Geolocation aware radio resource management al-
gorithm for the security of CR enabled C-RAN
[93] Theoretical framework Resource utilization and network cost Introducing BTA architecture for C-RAN security
and case study

TABLE VII: A summary of the reviewed papers on system cost reduction in C-RAN

Research References Solution Approach Performance Metric Main Feature

Area
System cost [40] Numerical modeling and Normalized TCO Techno-economic analysis finding that H-RAN ar-
analysis chitecture has the lowest TCO
[94] Optimization using TCO (Euro) Determination of cost-effective migration from D-
MILP RAN to C-RAN
[95] Optimization using System cost VM activation and sparse BF for cost minimization
MINLP with limited fronthaul capacity
[96] Iterative algorithm ESE (bit/Hz/J), SE (bps/Hz) and sum- Cost-efficient resource allocation scheme consider-
power (dBm) ing the cost of heterogeneous fronthaul links
[97] Iterative algorithm Cost A joint cost-effective resource allocation scheme
between C-RAN and MCC systems
[98] Linear programming Objective value Dynamic resource management mechanism for im-
with two-phase proving the cost effectiveness
approximations
[99] Numerical modeling and System cost, delay and throughput A C-RAN architecture incorporating both C-RAN
analysis and traditional BSs with a tradeoff among ASE,
delay and system cost
[100] Numerical modeling and Cost (MUSD) A new cost model incorporating the costs of BSs,
analysis data center and the equipment in the fronthaul links

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