Adaptive C-RAN Architecture Using Crowdsourced Radio Units for Smart City

This paper proposes a concept of adaptive centralized radio access network (C-RAN) architecture for a smart city using crowdsourced radio units (CRUs). To efficiently manage the ever-increasing mobile traffic, mobile networks have improved their capacity. The C-RAN architecture with the dense deployment of small cells has become prevalent in today’s mobile networks. However, the spatiotemporal fluctuation in traffic demand deteriorates the cost and operation efficiencies of conventional networks. Such fluctuation is expected to be intensified in the future in accordance with the increase in the data rate. To address this problem, the proposed architecture utilizes the power of citizens in the network deployment by employing the concept of vehicle-mounted small cells. The onboard CRUs are activated by edge servers when vehicles move to high-demand areas and deactivated when they move to low-demand areas. This paper also proposes the activation algorithm executed by edge servers based on the traffic information measured by roadside units (RSUs). Computer simulations demonstrate that the proposed scheme can improve network throughput during both daytime and nighttime. The proposed architecture contributes to the efficient deployment of mobile networks and better energy use in a smart city.