Collaborative radio access of heterogeneous cloud radio access networks and edge computing networks

Abstract

Although the technical merits of the heterogeneous cloud radio access networks (H-CRAN) architecture have been well demonstrated in terms of data rate enhancement and ubiquitous wireless service provisioning, solely relying on the H-CRAN may not be sufficient to further support full automation and everything-to-everything (X2X) connection for the next generation wireless applications. Recently, the edge computing network (EdgeNet) architecture exploiting socially-aware information and edge/fog computing technology has emerged to promisingly enhance the front-haul throughput and end-to-end latency performance. However, the EdgeNet architecture suffers from lacking of prosperous resource coordination. Although the spirits of the H-CRAN and EdgeNet appear opposite with each other, this two networking technologies actually complement each other in engineering practice. In this paper, we analytically derive the sufficient conditions for the optimum collaborative radio access. Our results thus suggest a harmonization between the H-CRAN adopting a scheduling based radio access and the EdgeNet applying a random access.