Multiple smaller base stations are greener than a single powerful one: Densification of Wireless Cellular Networks
Multiple smaller base stations are greener than a single powerful one: Densification of Wireless Cellular Networks
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发表时间：
2022
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通讯作者：
Agrim Gupta;I. Jain;Dinesh Bharadia
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作者：
Agrim Gupta;I. Jain;Dinesh Bharadia
5G和蜂窝网络将成为碳足迹的1.4%贡献者，几乎与航空业的2%相当，并且只会进一步增加其碳足迹。无线基站是造成运营碳足迹的主要因素之一，因为它以高功率水平进行发射以实现所需的通信范围和吞吐量。为了进一步跟上不断增长的数据速率，以及更多的用户连接，典型的方法使现有的基站更加复杂，例如采用大规模MIMO架构或毫米波通信，前者需要更多的天线和电子设备，后者在高毫米波频率下工作，其中功率放大器难以设计。相反，如果基站部署是密集的，则可以在更低的发射功率要求下使用简单得多的硬件，其中关键思想是，许多更简单的基站可以等效地完成单个复杂基站的工作。这种密集的部署也最终节省了在较高信号水平下传输的功率成本，因为较小的基站需要在空中发射较少的功率。关键原因是，由于链路较短，这种密集的基站网络遭受的环境衰减较小，因此需要显著减少的功率来抵消这些环境损耗。此外，这种致密化策略可以是实现下一代蜂窝容量的可扩展方式，其中网络可以响应于用户需求而致密化。然而，这样做需要解决设计此类网络的众多挑战和机遇，阐明架构，算法和部署层面的挑战，以推动下一个十年的研究向更绿色的蜂窝网络发展。
5G and cellular networks would become 1.4% contributors to the carbon footprint, almost on par with 2% of the aviation industry, and is only on the trajectory of further increasing their carbon footprint. Wireless base-stations are one of the major contributors to the operational carbon footprint, as a consequence of transmitting at high power levels to achieve the required communication range and throughput. In order to further keep up with the increasing data rates, and more users getting connected, typical approaches make the existing base stations even more sophisticated, like going to massive MIMO architectures, or mmWave communications, the earlier requiring many more antennas and electronics, and the latter operating at high mmWave frequencies where power amplifiers are difficult to design. Instead, much simpler hardware can be used at lesser transmit power requirements if the base station deployment is densified, with the key idea being that numerous simpler base stations can equivalently do the job of a single sophisticated base station. This dense deployment also ends up saving the power cost of transmitting at higher signal levels, since the smaller base stations need to blast lesser power over the air. The key reason is that this dense network of base stations suffers from less environmental attenuation due to shorter links, thus requiring significantly less power to offset these environmental losses. Further, this densification strategy can be a scalable way of achieving the next generation cellular capacity, where networks can be densified as response to user demand. However, doing so would require addressing numerous challenges and opportunities in designing such networks, articulating the architecture, algorithm, and deployment-level challenges to drive the next decade of research toward greener cellular networks.