Traffic-Aware Dynamic Functional Split for 5G Cloud Radio Access Networks

As we are moving towards adopting virtualization technologies for next generation mobile networks, 5G base station (called gNB) is segregated into a Radio Unit (RU), a Distributed Unit (DU), and a Central Unit (CU) in order to support Cloud based Radio Access Networks (C-RAN) where RU and DU are connected through a fronthaul link while CU and DU are connected through a midhaul link. Although virtualization of CU gives benefits of centralization to the operators, there are other issues to be solved such as optimization of midhaul bandwidth and computing resources at edge cloud and central cloud where the DUs and CUs are deployed, respectively. In this paper, we propose a dynamic functional split selection for the DUs in 5G C-RAN by adopting to traffic heterogeneity where the midhaul bandwidth is limited. We proposed an optimization problem that maximizes the centralization of the C-RAN system by operating more number of DUs on split Option-7 by changing the channel bandwidth of the DUs. The dynamical selection of split options among each CU-DU pair gives 90% centralization over the static functional split for a given midhaul bandwidth.