Assessment of energy savings in relay-assisted 5G and beyond radio access networks

Abstract

Reducing the overall energy consumption in mobile networks is currently an important aspect that drives the evolution towards 5G and beyond systems, both for environmental and economic reasons. In this direction, the use of relay nodes, whose interest is recently revamping through different initiatives such as the Integrated Access and Backhaul, is considered because they can contribute to reducing the overall power consumption thanks to improving the overall coverage conditions in the network. Then, this paper presents an assessment of the energy efficiency improvements and energy savings that can be achieved through the use of relays considering a realistic scenario of a university campus. The paper studies the different aspects that influence on these energy savings, such as the required bit rates and the power consumption model parameters.

This work was supported in part by the Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking (SNS JU) under the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation program under Grant Agreement No. 101097083 (BeGREEN project) and in part by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 under ARTIST project (ref. PID2020-115104RB-I00).

Peer Reviewed

Postprint (author's final draft)