D2D Enhanced Co-Ordinated Multipoint in Cloud Radio Access Networks

Coordinated multipoint (CoMP) is an efficient technique to increase cell-edge coverage probability and throughput in cloud radio access network (C-RAN). In this paper, we integrate device-to-device (D2D) communications with CoMP by applying a distance based mode selection rule for downlink users in C-RAN, exploiting the proximity of D2D communications to improve system spectral efficiency. Using stochastic geometry, we first derive the signal-to-interference ratio distribution at a typical downlink user and a typical D2D receiver when two types of CoMP schemes, namely, zero-forcing beamforming (ZFBF) and noncoherent joint transmission (NC-JT), are applied in C-RAN. In addition, we analytically compare ZFBF and NC-JT using rate coverage probability. Meanwhile, we analyze the effect of D2D communications on enhancing the area spectral efficiency (ASE) of CoMP enabled C-RAN system. Numerical results show that increasing the co-operative cluster size would potentially degrade the system ASE when the network is heavily loaded. Furthermore, it is observed that enabling D2D mode in C-RAN can effectively offload the traffic of C-RAN and provide significant ASE gains if mode selection threshold is properly designed. Lastly, it is analytically demonstrated that spectrum resources can be better exploited by D2D users if they coexist with ZFBF enabled radio units (RUs) rather than NC-JT enabled RUs.