Energy-Efficient Resource Allocation Optimization for Multimedia Heterogeneous Cloud Radio Access Networks

The heterogeneous cloud radio access network (H-CRAN) is a promising paradigm that incorporates cloud computing into heterogeneous networks (HetNets), thereby taking full advantage of cloud radio access networks (C-RANs) and HetNets. Characterizing cooperative beamforming with fronthaul capacity and queue stability constraints is critical for multimedia applications to improve the energy efficiency (EE) in H-CRANs. An energy-efficient optimization objective function with individual fronthaul capacity and intertier interference constraints is presented in this paper for queue-aware multimedia H-CRANs. To solve this nonconvex objective function, a stochastic optimization problem is reformulated by introducing the general Lyapunov optimization framework. Under the Lyapunov framework, this optimization problem is equivalent to an optimal network-wide cooperative beamformer design algorithm with instantaneous power, average power, and intertier interference constraints, which can be regarded as a weighted sum EE maximization problem and solved by a generalized weighted minimum mean-square error approach. The mathematical analysis and simulation results demonstrate that a tradeoff between EE and queuing delay can be achieved, and this tradeoff strictly depends on the fronthaul constraint.