Reliability Analysis of Centralized Radio Access Networks in Non-Line-of-Sight and Line-of-Sight Scenarios

Abstract

The fifth generation (5G) wireless network technology is set to be standardized by 2020, where the main goals are to improve capacity, reliability, and energy efficiency while reducing latency and massively increasing connection density. 5G systems target to support a vast number of services with heterogeneous requirements. In recent years, a centralized processing radio architecture called centralized radio access network (C-RAN) or Cloud-RAN has got a lot of attention because of its potential to meet the 5G goals. In this paper, we present a lower layers centric C-RAN analysis methodology, which is designed on the key design principles of 5G systems: flexibility and reliability. In this paper, reliability at lower layers is defined as the probability of achieving a minimum required signal-to-interference-plus-noise-ratio at a user equipment location. The main contributions of our work are the reliability analysis of C-RAN systems in non-line-of-sight and line-of-sight conditions. Furthermore, a real-time C-RAN testbed with measurement results are presented to validate the reliability analysis.