Uplink and Downlink Rate Analysis of a Full-Duplex C-RAN with Radio Remote Head Association

Abstract: We characterize the uplink (UL) and downlink (DL) rates of a full-duplex cloud radio access network (C-RAN) with all participate and single best remote radio head (RRH) association schemes. Specifically, multi-antenna equipped RRHs distributed according to a Poisson point process is assumed. The UL and DL sum rate of the single best RRH association scheme is maximized using receive and transmit beamformer designs at the UL and DL RRHs, respectively. In the case of the single best strategy, we study both optimum and sub-optimum schemes based on maximum ratio combining/maximal ratio transmission (MRC/MRT) and zero-forcing/MRT (ZF/MRT) processing. Numerical results show that significant performance improvements can be achieved by using the full-duplex mode as compared to the half-duplex mode. Moreover, the choice of the beamforming design and the RRH association scheme have a major influence on the achievable full-duplex gains.