"Cocktail Party in the Cloud": Blind Source Separation for Co-Operative Cellular Communication in Cloud RAN

Due to the rapid growing popularity of mobile Internet, broadband cellular wireless systems are expected to offer higher and higher data rates even in high-mobility environments. Cloud Radio Access Network (C-RAN) is a new centralized paradigm for broadband wireless access that addresses efficiently the fluctuation in capacity demand through real-time inter-Base Station (BS) cooperation. An innovative Blind Source Separation (BSS)-based cellular communication solution for CRANs, Cloud-BSS, which leverages the inter-BS cooperation, is proposed. Cloud-BSS groups contiguous cells into clusters - sets of neighboring cells inside which mobile stations do not need to perform handovers - and allows them to use all of the frequency channels. The proposed solution is studied under different network topologies, and a novel strategy, called Channel-Select, to improve the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) is introduced. Cloud-BSS enhances the cluster spectral efficiency, decreases handovers, eliminates the need for bandwidth-consuming channel estimation techniques, and mitigates interference. Simulation results, which are discussed along with concepts, confirm these expectations.