Switch-DFT: Adaptive Waveform and MIMO Switching for Energy-Efficient Base Stations

Abstract: Energy efficiency has emerged as a critical challenge in modern base stations (BSs), as the power amplifier (PA) consumes a substantial portion of the total power due to its limited efficiency. We investigate waveform and mode adaptation to enhance the energy efficiency of BSs. We propose Switch-DFT, an adaptive switching framework that selects between cyclic prefix orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (CP-OFDM) and discrete Fourier transform-spread-OFDM (DFT-s-OFDM) waveforms, as well as between single-input multiple-output (SIMO) and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) modes. Switch-DFT improves efficiency by reducing PA backoff with DFT-s-OFDM and achieves the target rate at lower power by leveraging higher MIMO throughput. This results in superior energy efficiency over a wide range of the spectral efficiencies compared with static configurations.