Full-Duplex Enabled Cloud Radio Access Network

Full-duplex (FD) has emerged as a disruptive solution for improving the achievable spectral efficiency (SE), thanks to the recent major breakthroughs in self-interference (SI) mitigation. The FD versus half-duplex (HD) SE gain, in the context of cellular networks, is however largely limited by the mutual interference (MI) between the downlink (DL) and uplink (UL). A potential remedy for tackling the MI bottleneck is through cooperative communications. This paper provides a stochastic analysis of FD enabled cloud radio access network (CRAN) with finite user-centric cooperative clusters. Contrary to the most existing theoretical studies of C-RAN, we explicitly take into consideration non-isotropic fading channel conditions, and finite-capacity fronthaul links. Accordingly, we develop analytical expressions for the FD C-RAN DL and UL SEs. The results indicate that significant FD versus HD C-RAN SE gains can be achieved, particularly in the presence of sufficient-capacity fronthaul links and advanced interference cancellation capabilities.