Performance Evaluation of Ethernet-Based Mobile Fronthaul and Wireless CoMP in Split-PHY Processing

Abstract

We experimentally evaluate the mobile fronthaul (MFH) optical bandwidth and wireless coordinated multipoint (CoMP) transmission and reception performance in Ethernet-based MFH with our proposed split-physical (PHY) processing (SPP). To reduce the MFH optical bandwidth, SPP redefines the base station (BS) functional split between the baseband unit (BBU) and the remote radio head (RRH) in a centralized/cloud radio access network (C-RAN) with a common public radio interface. The functional split point of SPP is between wireless channel coding and wireless modulation within the PHY layer functions. SPP employs its own CoMP joint transmission and reception schemes to achieve high wireless CoMP performance comparable to that in a conventional C-RAN while reducing the MFH optical bandwidth. Experimental results in the uplink and downlink show that SPP reduces the MFH optical bandwidth by over 90% compared to the conventional C-RAN. At the same time, SPP achieves wireless performance with a signal-to-noise ratio penalty of less than 2 dB compared to the conventional C-RAN in the uplink and outputs wireless signals identical to the wireless signal output in the conventional C-RAN in the downlink.