Vijay Addresses Research Issues for Energy Efficient Cellular Networks during ComSoc Distinguished Lecturer Tour in Harbin, China

(By Vijay K. Bhargava, President, IEEE Communications Society, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada)
 

The IEEE Communications Chapter in Harbin Section is a newly established Chapter in China. Its founding Chair is Professor Weixiao Meng of the Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT).  

The Talk was rescheduled for Sunday, 19 August at 9:00 am in the morning as HIT was going to have a brief term break starting on 20 August.

Nevertheless there were 35 attendees and as many of them were not ComSoc members, I outlined the benefits of being a member during my presentation. A lively question answer session followed the talk.

Research Issues for Energy Efficient Cellular Networks

Abstract

The rising energy costs and carbon footprint of operating cellular networks have led to a trend in addressing energy-efficiency amongst the network operators and regulatory bodies such as 3GPP and ITU. "Greening" the wireless networks is a vast research discipline that needs to cover all the layers of the protocol stack and various system architectures and it is important to identify the fundamental trade-offs linked with energy efficiency and the overall performance.

In this talk, we identify four important aspects of a green networking where we would like to focus: defining green metrics, bringing architectural changes in base stations, network planning, and efficient system design. We begin with a brief discussion on energy efficiency metrics. Since Base Stations (BSs) consume a major chunk of input energy, we discuss the energy efficiency of BSs.

Next we discuss energy efficiency from a network planning perspective, based on smaller cells for heterogeneous networks. For system design, we put a special emphasis on cognitive and cooperative techniques in order to realize energy efficient cellular systems. Finally we discuss some broader perspectives and possible future trends in realizing a green cellular network technology.

Vijay K. Bhargava, ComSoc President, Distinguished Lecturer, (2_nd row, 3_rd from left), with Chapter Chair, Weixiao Meng (2_nd row, 2_nd from left), and attendees at Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT).

For information, visit ComSoc Distinguished Lecturer Tours Program.