Multinode Component Carrier Management: Multiconnectivity in 5G

Abstract

From its conception, 5G has been designed to support a wide variety of service types, ranging from enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) to ultrareliable low-latency communications (URLLC). To overcome the disparity of their requirements, a number of radio resource management (RRM) solutions have been proposed, among which multiconnectivity (MC) may be highlighted: that is, the aggregation of radio resources in the shape of component carriers (CCs) from several base stations (BSs). MC allows a number of benefits to be achieved, from increased reliability, due to multilink diversity, to throughput enhancements, due to the usage of additional radio resources and load balance among the involved BSs. This article proposes a novel RRM mechanism to jointly manage user equipment (UE)-BS association rules and CC selection, according to network operators' policies, defined over a variety of performance indicators. Simulations show that, in a scenario of load imbalance, the proposed mechanism allows the UE throughput to be increased while improving the network efficiency by means of a proper inter-CC and inter-BS load balance when compared to traditional received power-based schemes for CC management applied in an MC environment.