Energy efficient cloud radio access network with a single RF antenna

This paper studies the energy efficiency (EE) of the cloud radio access network (C-RAN), consisting of multiple remote radio heads (RRHs) equipped with electronically steerable parasitic array radiator (ESPAR) antennas, which provide multiple antenna functionality with a single radio frequency (RF) chain. An EE optimization problem is formulated to obtain the configuration of ESPAR and the closed-form expressions of the voltage feeding and the loadings are derived for signal transmission at each RRH. Specifically, we obtain the closed-form expressions for precoder and power allocation that are applicable not only for the ESPAR based system but also for standard MIMO antenna (SMA) system with multiple RF chains. It is shown that EA system can be configured with less complexity compared with SMA system in block fading channel. Furthermore, symbol error rate (SER) and EE performances are compared for EA and SMA based systems. It is shown that the system with EA provides better EE performance while providing similar SER performance. From our results, it is proved that EA system can provide better performance to satisfy the requirement of 5G wireless communication networks.