Energy Efficiency Challenges of 5G Small Cell Networks

TL;DR

This paper investigates the energy consumption of 5G small cell networks, highlighting that computation power constitutes over half of total energy use and can reach 800 watts with massive MIMO, emphasizing the need for optimization.

Contribution

It analyzes the impact of computation power on energy efficiency in 5G small cells, using the Landauer principle and simulations to quantify energy consumption.

Findings

Over 50% of energy is used by computation power in 5G small cells.

Computation power can reach 800 watts with 128-antenna massive MIMO.

Optimization of computation power is crucial for energy efficiency.

Abstract

The deployment of a large number of small cells poses new challenges to energy efficiency, which has often been ignored in fifth generation (5G) cellular networks. While massive multiple-input multiple outputs (MIMO) will reduce the transmission power at the expense of higher computational cost, the question remains as to which computation or transmission power is more important in the energy efficiency of 5G small cell networks. Thus, the main objective in this paper is to investigate the computation power based on the Landauer principle. Simulation results reveal that more than 50% of the energy is consumed by the computation power at 5G small cell BS's. Moreover, the computation power of 5G small cell BS can approach 800 watt when the massive MIMO (e.g., 128 antennas) is deployed to transmit high volume traffic. This clearly indicates that computation power optimization can play a major role in the energy efficiency of small cell networks.