Multi-point fairness in resource allocation for C-RAN downlink CoMP transmission

Abstract

We investigate the resource allocation dynamics of Coordinated Multi-Point (CoMP) transmissions in a Cloud' Radio Access Network (C-RAN) deployment. In this context, we propose a service-aware user-centric scheme that achieves fairness in a multi-point fashion for the downlink. This approach operates in time-frequency and space, assuming a fixed power per transmitter. The scheme adaptively chooses overlapping clusters of serving stations on a per-user basis and effectively schedules the users in their preferred sets. We show how throughput and delay improvements can be achieved fairly for both center and edge users, with QoS considerations in the time domain and a Product of Metrics (POM) in the frequency domain that prunes the user-centric clusters.