학술논문

An Efficient Fronthaul Scheme Based on Coaxial Cables for 5G Centralized Radio Access Networks
Document Type
Periodical
Source
IEEE Transactions on Communications IEEE Trans. Commun. Communications, IEEE Transactions on. 69(2):1343-1357 Feb, 2021
Subject
Communication, Networking and Broadcast Technologies
Coaxial cables
5G mobile communication
Transmitting antennas
Urban areas
Mobile antennas
Physical layer
Radio access networks
C-RAN
fronthaul
coaxial cables
radio-over-coaxial
small cells
Language
ISSN
0090-6778
1558-0857
Abstract
The 5G mobile communication systems introduce multiples functional splits between base station elements, new transmission bands and a large number of antennas supporting beamforming. In this scenario, a viable strategy to avoid building penetration losses is to deploy the antenna elements indoor and use a fronthaul link to establish the connection between them and the rest of the radio access network. This work explores a 5G fronthaul scheme based on analog radio over coaxial cables, leveraging this existing fixed access infrastructure to facilitate 5G deployments. Results indicate that the fronthaul solution discussed here is able to support the high capacity requirement of 5G, with the additional benefits of low transmit power, low latency and low cost. The main novelty of this paper is to investigate the potential of this kind of fronthaul architecture considering both the physical layer and economic aspects.