This work studies the joint design of cloud and edge processing for the downlink of a fog radio access network (F-RAN). In an F-RAN, as in cloud-RAN (C-RAN), a baseband processing unit (BBU) can perform joint baseband processing on behalf of the remote radio heads (RRHs) that are connected to the BBU by means of the fronthaul links. In addition to the minimal functionalities of conventional RRHs in C-RAN, the RRHs in an F-RAN may be equipped with local caches, in which frequently requested contents can be stored, as well as with baseband processing capabilities. They are hence referred to as enhanced RRH (eRRH). This work focuses on the design of the delivery phase for an arbitrary pre-fetching strategy used to populate the caches of the eRRHs. Two fronthauling modes are considered, namely a hard-transfer mode, whereby non-cached files are communicated over the fronthaul links to a subset of eRRHs, and a soft-transfer mode, whereby the fronthaul links are used to convey quantized baseband signals as in a C-RAN. Unlike the hard-transfer mode in which baseband processing is traditionally carried out only at the eRRHs, the soft-transfer mode enables both centralized precoding at the BBU and local precoding at the eRRHs based on the cached contents, by means of a novel superposition coding approach. To attain the advantages of both approaches, a hybrid design of soft- and hard-transfer modes is also proposed. The problem of maximizing the delivery rate is tackled under fronthaul capacity and per-eRRH power constraints. Numerical results are provided to compare the performance of hard- and soft-transfer fronthauling modes, as well as of the hybrid scheme, for different baseline pre-fetching strategies.
Fog computing based radio access network is a promising paradigm for the fifth generation wireless communication system to provide high spectral and energy efficiency. With the help of the new designed fog computing based access points (F-APs), the user-centric objectives can be achieved through the adaptive technique and will relieve the load of fronthaul and alleviate the burden of base band unit pool. In this paper, we derive the coverage probability and ergodic rate for both F-AP users and device-to-device users by taking into account the different nodes locations, cache sizes as well as u…
A fog radio access network (F-RAN) is studied, in which $K_T$ edge nodes (ENs) connected to a cloud server via orthogonal fronthaul links, serve $K_R$ users through a wireless Gaussian interference channel. Both the ENs and the users have finite-capacity cache memories, which are filled before the user demands are revealed. While a centralized placement phase is used for the ENs, which model static base stations, a decentralized placement is leveraged for the mobile users. An achievable transmission scheme is presented, which employs a combination of interference alignment, zero-forcing and in…
Network slicing has been advocated by both academia and industry as a cost-efficient way to enable operators to provide networks on an as-a-service basis and meet the wide range of use cases that the fifth generation wireless network will serve. The existing works on network slicing are mainly targeted at the partition of the core network, and the prospect of network slicing in radio access networks should be jointly exploited. To solve this challenge, an enhanced network slicing in fog radio access networks (F-RANs), termed as access slicing, is proposed. This article comprehensively presents…
This paper considers the support of grant-free massive access and solves the challenge of active user detection and channel estimation in the case of a massive number of users. By exploiting the sparsity of user activities, the concerned problems are formulated as a compressive sensing problem, whose solution is acquired by approximate message passing (AMP) algorithm. Considering the cooperation of multiple access points, for the deployment of AMP algorithm, we compare two processing paradigms, cloud computing and fog computing, in terms of their effectiveness in guaranteeing ultra reliable lo…
In this paper, the edge caching problem in ultra-dense fog radio access networks (F-RAN) is investigated. Taking into account time-variant user requests and ultra-dense deployment of fog access points (F-APs), we propose a dynamic distributed edge caching scheme to jointly minimize the request service delay and fronthaul traffic load. Considering the interactive relationship among F-APs, we model the caching optimization problem as a stochastic differential game (SDG) which captures the temporal dynamics of F-AP states and incorporates user requests status. The SDG is further approximated as a…
In this paper, the placement strategy design of coded caching in fog-radio access networks (F-RANs) is investigated. By considering time-variant content popularity, federated deep reinforcement learning is exploited to learn the placement strategy for our coded caching scheme. Initially, the placement problem is modeled as a Markov decision process (MDP) to capture the popularity variations and minimize the long-term content access delay. The reformulated sequential decision problem is solved by dueling double deep Q-learning (dueling DDQL). Then, federated learning is applied to learn the rel…
As a promising paradigm for the fifth generation wireless communication (5G) system, the fog radio access network (F-RAN) has been proposed as an advanced socially-aware mobile networking architecture to provide high spectral efficiency (SE) while maintaining high energy efficiency (EE) and low latency. Recent advents are advocated to the performance analysis and radio resource allocation, both of which are fundamental issues to make F-RANs successfully rollout. This article comprehensively summarizes the recent advances of the performance analysis and radio resource allocation in F-RANs. Part…
In order to make Internet connections ubiquitous and autonomous in our daily lives, maximizing the utilization of radio resources and social information is one of the major research topics in future mobile communication technologies. Fog radio access network (FRAN) is regarded as a promising paradigm for the fifth generation (5G) of mobile networks. FRAN integrates fog computing with RAN and makes full use of the edge of networks. FRAN would be different in networking, computing, storage and control as compared with conventional radio access networks (RAN) and the emerging cloud RAN. In this a…
The fog radio access network (F-RAN) is a promising paradigm for the fifth generation wireless communication systems to provide high spectral efficiency and energy efficiency. Characterizing users to select an appropriate communication mode among fog access point (F-AP), and device-to-device (D2D) in F-RANs is critical for performance optimization. Using evolutionary game theory, we investigate the dynamics of user access mode selection in F-RANs. Specifically, the competition among groups of potential users space is formulated as a dynamic evolutionary game, and the evolutionary equilibrium i…
In this paper, we investigate the problem of asynchronous coded caching in fog radio access networks (F-RANs). To minimize the fronthaul load, the encoding set collapsing rule and encoding set partition method are proposed to establish the relationship between the coded-multicasting contents for asynchronous and synchronous coded caching. Furthermore, a decentralized asynchronous coded caching scheme is proposed, which provides asynchronous and synchronous transmission methods for different delay requirements. The closed-form expression of the fronthaul load is established for the special case…
Recently, an evolution of the Cloud Radio Access Network (C-RAN) has been proposed, named as Fog Radio Access Network (F-RAN). Compared to C-RAN, the Radio Units (RUs) in F-CAN are equipped with local caches, which can store some frequently requested files. In the downlink, users requesting the same file form a multicast group, and are cooperatively served by a cluster of RUs. The requested file is either available locally in the cache of this cluster or fetched from the Central Processor (CP) via backhauls. Thus caching some frequently requested files can greatly reduce the burden on backhaul…
The upcoming big data era is likely to demand tremendous computation and storage resources for communications. By pushing computation and storage to network edges, fog radio access networks (Fog-RAN) can effectively increase network throughput and reduce transmission latency. Furthermore, we can exploit the benefits of cache enabled architecture in Fog-RAN to deliver contents with low latency. Radio access units (RAUs) need content delivery from fog servers through wireline links whereas multiple mobile devices acquire contents from RAUs wirelessly. This work proposes a unified low-rank matrix…
In this paper, we investigate maximum distance separable (MDS) codes based group coded caching in fog radio access networks (F-RANs). The goal is to minimize the average fronthaul rate under nonuniform file popularity. Firstly, an MDS codes and file grouping based coded placement scheme is proposed to provide coded packets and allocate more cache to the most popular files simultaneously. Next, a fog access point (F-AP) grouping based coded delivery scheme is proposed to meet the requests for files from different groups. Furthermore, a closed-form expression of the average fronthaul rate is der…
This work studies the advantages of coded multicasting for the downlink of a Fog Radio Access Network (F-RAN) system equipped with a multicast fronthaul link. In this system, a control unit (CU) in the baseband processing unit (BBU) pool is connected to distributed edge nodes (ENs) through a multicast fronthaul link of finite capacity, and the ENs have baseband processing and caching capabilities. Each user equipment (UE) requests a file in a content library which is available at the CU, and the requested files are served by the closest ENs based on the cached contents and on the information r…
The fog radio access network (Fog-RAN) has been considered a promising wireless access architecture to help shorten the communication delay and relieve the large data delivery burden over the backhaul links. However, limited by conventional inflexible communication design, Fog-RAN cannot be used in some complex communication scenarios. In this study, we focus on investigating a more intelligent Fog-RAN to assist the communication in a high-speed railway environment. Due to the train's continuously moving, the communication should be designed intelligently to adapt to channel variation. Specifi…
This paper considers computation offloading in fog-radio access networks (F-RAN), where multiple user equipments (UEs) offload their computation tasks to the F-RAN through a number of fog nodes. Each UE can choose one of the fog nodes to offload its task, and each fog node may serve multiple UEs. Depending on the computation burden at the fog nodes, the tasks may be computed by the fog nodes or further offloaded to the cloud via capacity-limited fronthaul links. To compute all UEs' tasks as fast as possible, joint optimization of UE-Fog association, radio and computation resources of F-RAN is …
Data compression has the potential to significantly improve the computation offloading performance in hierarchical fog-cloud systems. However, it remains unknown how to optimally determine the compression ratio jointly with the computation offloading decisions and the resource allocation. This joint optimization problem is studied in the current paper where we aim to minimize the maximum weighted energy and service delay cost (WEDC) of all users. First, we consider a scenario where data compression is performed only at the mobile users. We prove that the optimal offloading decisions have a thr…
Centralized coded caching and delivery is studied for a partially-connected fog radio access network (F-RAN), whereby a set of H edge nodes (ENs) (without caches), connected to a cloud server via orthogonal fronthaul links, serve K users over the wireless edge. The cloud server is assumed to hold a library of N files, each of size F bits; and each user, equipped with a cache of size MF bits, is connected to a distinct set of r ENs; or equivalently, the wireless edge from the ENs to the users is modeled as a partial interference channel. The objective is to minimize the normalized delivery time…
Fog computing is emerging as a promising paradigm to perform distributed, low-latency computation by jointly exploiting the radio and computing resources of end-user devices and cloud servers. However, the dynamic and distributed formation of local fog networks is highly challenging due to the unpredictable arrival and departure of neighboring fog nodes. Therefore, a given fog node must properly select a set of neighboring nodes and intelligently offload its computational tasks to this set of neighboring fog nodes and the cloud in order to achieve low-latency transmission and computation. In t…
A fog computing based radio access network (F-RAN) is presented in this article as a promising paradigm for the fifth generation (5G) wireless communication system to provide high spectral and energy efficiency. The core idea is to take full advantages of local radio signal processing, cooperative radio resource management, and distributed storing capabilities in edge devices, which can decrease the heavy burden on fronthaul and avoid large-scale radio signal processing in the centralized baseband unit pool. This article comprehensively presents the system architecture and key techniques of F-…
In the wake of growth in intelligent mobile devices and wide usage of bandwidth-hungry applications of mobile Internet, the demand of wireless data traffic and ubiquitous mobile broadband is rapidly increasing. On account of these developments, the research on fifth generation (5G) networks presents an accelerative tendency on a global scale. Edge computing draw lots of attention for reducing the time delay and improving the Quality of Service for the networks. While, fog radio access networks (F-RANs) is an emergent architecture, which takes full use of edge computing and distributed storing …
In this paper, cooperative caching is investigated in fog radio access networks (F-RAN). To maximize the offloaded traffic, cooperative caching optimization problem is formulated. By analyzing the relationship between clustering and cooperation and utilizing the solutions of the knapsack problems, the above challenging optimization problem is transformed into a clustering subproblem and a content placement subproblem. To further reduce complexity, we propose an effective graph-based approach to solve the two subproblems. In the graph-based clustering approach, a node graph and a weighted graph…
Consider a device-to-device (D2D) fog-radio access network wherein a set of devices are required to store a set of files. Each device is connected to a subset of the cloud data centers and thus possesses a subset of the data. This paper investigates the problem of disseminating all files among the devices while reducing the total time of communication, i.e., the completion time, using instantly decodable network coding (IDNC). While previous studies on the use of IDNC in D2D systems assume a fully connected communication network, this paper tackles the more realistic scenario of a partially co…
This paper aims to characterize the synergy of distributed caching and wireless fronthaul in a fog radio access network (Fog-RAN) where all edge nodes (ENs) and user equipments (UEs) have a local cache and store contents independently at random. The network operates in two phases, a file-splitting based decentralized cache placement phase and a fronthaul-aided content delivery phase. We adopt normalized delivery time (NDT) to characterize the asymptotic latency performance with respect to cache size and fronthaul capacity. Both an achievable upper bound and a theoretical lower bound of NDT are…
A Fog Radio Access Network (F-RAN) is a cellular wireless system that enables content delivery via the caching of popular content at edge nodes (ENs) and cloud processing. The existing information-theoretic analyses of F-RAN systems, and special cases thereof, make the assumption that all requests should be guaranteed the same delivery latency, which results in identical latency for all files in the content library. In practice, however, contents may have heterogeneous timeliness requirements depending on the applications that operate on them. Given per-EN cache capacity constraint, there exis…
A multi-cell Fog-Radio Access Network (F-RAN) architecture is considered in which Internet of Things (IoT) devices periodically make noisy observations of a Quantity of Interest (QoI) and transmit using grant-free access in the uplink. The devices in each cell are connected to an Edge Node (EN), which may also have a finite-capacity fronthaul link to a central processor. In contrast to conventional information-agnostic protocols, the devices transmit using a Type-Based Multiple Access (TBMA) protocol that is tailored to enable the estimate of the field of correlated QoIs in each cell based on …
In this paper, we investigate the downlink transmission for cache-enabled fog radio access networks aiming at maximizing the delivery rate under the constraints of fronthaul capacity, maximum transmit power, and size of files. To reduce the delivery latency and the burden on fronthaul links and make full use of the local cache and baseband signal processing capabilities of enhanced remote radio heads (eRRHs), a two-level transmission scheme including cache-level and network-level transmission is proposed. In cache-level transmission, only requested files cached at the local cache are transmitt…
A fog-radio access network (F-RAN) architecture is studied for an Internet-of-Things (IoT) system in which wireless sensors monitor a number of multi-valued events and transmit in the uplink using grant-free random access to multiple edge nodes (ENs). Each EN is connected to a central processor (CP) via a finite-capacity fronthaul link. In contrast to conventional information-agnostic protocols based on separate source-channel (SSC) coding, where each device uses a separate codebook, this paper considers an information-centric approach based on joint source-channel (JSC) coding via a non-ortho…
Internet of Things (IoT) systems may be deployed to monitor spatially distributed quantities of interests (QoIs), such as noise or pollution levels. This paper considers a fog-based IoT network, in which active IoT devices transmit measurements of the monitored QoIs to the local edge node (EN), while the ENs are connected to a cloud processor via limited-capacity fronthaul links. While the conventional approach uses preambles as metadata for reserving communication resources, here we consider assigning preambles directly to measurement levels across all devices. The resulting Type-Based Multip…
Resource allocation is investigated to enhance the performance of device-to-device (D2D) cooperation in a fog radio access network (F-RAN) architecture. Our envisioned framework enables two D2D links to share certain orthogonal radio resource blocks (RRBs) by forming device-clusters. In each device-cluster, both content-holder device-users (DUs) transmit to the content-requester DUs via an enhanced remote radio head (eRRH) over the same RRBs. Such RRBs are shared with the uplink F-RAN as well. The intra device-cluster interference is mitigated by exploiting both uplink and downlink rate-splitt…
In this paper, we investigate asynchronous coded caching in fog radio access networks (F-RAN). To minimize the fronthaul load, the encoding set collapsing rule and encoding set partition method are proposed to establish the relationship between the coded-multicasting contents in asynchronous and synchronous coded caching. Furthermore, a decentralized asynchronous coded caching scheme is proposed, which provides asynchronous and synchronous transmission methods for different delay requirements. The simulation results show that our proposed scheme creates considerable coded-multicasting opportun…
A multi-user fog radio access network (F-RAN) is designed for supporting content-centric services. The requested contents are partitioned into sub-contents, which are then 'beam- formed' by the remote radio heads (RRHs) for transmission to the users. Since a large number of beamformers must be designed, this poses a computational challenge. We tackle this challenge by proposing a new class of regularized zero forcing beamforming (RZFB) for directly mitigating the inter-content interferences, while the 'intra-content interference' is mitigated by successive interference cancellation at the user…
Fog-computing network combines the cloud computing and fog access points (FAPs) equipped with mobile edge computing (MEC) servers together to support computation-intensive tasks for mobile users. However, as FAPs have limited computational capabilities and are solely assisted by a remote cloud center in the baseband processing unit (BBU) of the cloud radio access (C-RAN) network, the latency benefits of this fog-computing C-RAN network may be worn off when facing a large number of offloading requests. In this paper, we investigate the delay minimization problem for task offloading in a hierarc…
In this paper, the edge caching problem in fog radio access network (F-RAN) is investigated. By maximizing the overall cache hit rate, the edge caching optimization problem is formulated to find the optimal policy. Content popularity in terms of time and space is considered from the perspective of regional users. We propose an online content popularity prediction algorithm by leveraging the content features and user preferences, and an offline user preference learning algorithm by using the {online gradient descent} (OGD) method and the {follow the (proximally) regularized leader} (FTRL-Proxim…
Pukyong National University（釜山国立大学）；Jeonbuk National University（全北国立大学）
Fog radio access networks (F-RANs), which consist of a cloud and multiple edge nodes (ENs) connected via fronthaul links, have been regarded as promising network architectures. The F-RAN entails a joint optimization of cloud and edge computing as well as fronthaul interactions, which is challenging for traditional optimization techniques. This paper proposes a Cloud-Enabled Cooperation-Inspired Learning (CECIL) framework, a structural deep learning mechanism for handling a generic F-RAN optimization problem. The proposed solution mimics cloud-aided cooperative optimization policies by includin…
Fog Radio Access Network (F-RAN) exploits cached contents at edge nodes (ENs) and fronthaul connection to the cloud for content delivery. Assuming dedicated fronthaul links between cloud and each EN, previous works focused on analyses of F-RANs using offline or online caching depending whether the content popularity is time-invariant or time-variant. Extension has been done for multicast fronthaul link connecting cloud to only two ENs and time-invariant popularity. In contrast, the scope of this work is on the case where multicast fronthaul link connects arbitrary number of ENs to the cloud an…
In a Fog Radio Access Network (F-RAN), the cloud processor (CP) collects channel state information (CSI) from the edge nodes (ENs) over fronthaul links. As a result, the CSI at the cloud is generally affected by an error due to outdating. In this work, the problem of content delivery based on fronthaul transmission and edge caching is studied from an information-theoretic perspective in the high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime. For the set-up under study, under the assumption of perfect CSI, prior work has shown the (approximate or exact) optimality of a scheme in which the ENs transmit inf…
Fog radio access network (Fog-RAN), which pushes the caching and computing capabilities to the network edge, is capable of efficiently delivering contents to users by using carefully designed caching placement and content replacement algorithms. In this paper, the transmission scheme design and coding parameter optimization will be considered for coded caching in Fog-RAN, where the reliability of content delivery, i.e., content outage probability, is used as the performance metric. The problem will be formulated as a complicated multi-objective probabilistic combinatorial optimization. A novel…
Jeonbuk National University（全北国立大学）；Pukyong National University（釜庆国立大学）
This work studies federated learning (FL) over a fog radio access network, in which multiple internet-of-things (IoT) devices cooperatively learn a shared machine learning model by communicating with a cloud server (CS) through distributed access points (APs). Under the assumption that the fronthaul links connecting APs to CS have finite capacity, a rate-splitting transmission at IoT devices (IDs) is proposed which enables hybrid edge and cloud decoding of split uplink messages. The problem of completion time minimization for FL is tackled by optimizing the rate-splitting transmission and fron…
This work proposes a new resource allocation optimization framework for cellular networks using "fog" or neighborhood-based optimization rather than fully centralized or fully decentralized methods. In neighborhood-based optimization resources are allocated within virtual cells encompassing several base-stations and the users within their coverage area. As the number of base-stations within a virtual cell increases, the framework reverts to centralized optimization, and as this number decreases it reverts to decentralized optimization. We address two tasks that must be carried out in the fog o…
A Fog-Radio Access Network (F-RAN) is studied in which cache-enabled Edge Nodes (ENs) with dedicated fronthaul connections to the cloud aim at delivering contents to mobile users. Using an information-theoretic approach, this work tackles the problem of quantifying the potential latency reduction that can be obtained by enabling Device-to-Device (D2D) communication over out-of-band broadcast links. Following prior work, the Normalized Delivery Time (NDT) --- a metric that captures the high signal-to-noise ratio worst-case latency --- is adopted as the performance criterion of interest. Joint e…
In this paper, the cooperative caching problem in fog radio access networks (F-RAN) is investigated. To maximize the incremental offloaded traffic, we formulate the clustering optimization problem with the consideration of cooperative caching and local content popularity, which falls into the scope of combinatorial programming. % and is NP-hard. We then propose an effective graph-based approach to solve this challenging problem. Firstly, a node graph is constructed with its vertex set representing the considered fog access points (F-APs) and its edge set reflecting the potential cooperations a…
Device-to-Device (D2D) communication can support the operation of cellular systems by reducing the traffic in the network infrastructure. In this paper, the benefits of D2D communication are investigated in the context of a Fog-Radio Access Network (F-RAN) that leverages edge caching and fronthaul connectivity for the purpose of content delivery. Assuming offline caching, out-of-band D2D communication, and an F-RAN with two edge nodes and two user equipments, an information-theoretically optimal caching and delivery strategy is presented that minimizes the delivery time in the high signal-to-n…
This paper investigates a fog computing-assisted multi-user simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) network, where multiple sensors with power splitting (PS) receiver architectures receive information and harvest energy from a hybrid access point (HAP), and then process the received data by using local computing mode or fog offloading mode. For such a system, an optimization problem is formulated to minimize the sensors' required energy while guaranteeing their required information transmissions and processing rates by jointly optimizing the multi-user scheduling, the time…
Fog-aided network architectures for 5G systems encompass wireless edge nodes, referred to as remote radio systems (RRSs), as well as remote cloud center (RCC) processors, which are connected to the RRSs via a fronthaul access network. RRSs and RCC are operated via Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), enabling a flexible split of network functionalities that adapts to network parameters such as fronthaul latency and capacity. This work focuses on uplink communications and investigates the cloud-edge allocation of two important network functions, namely the control functionality of rate selec…
In this paper, we develop a comprehensive and tractable analytical framework based on stochastic geometry to evaluate the performance of large-scale fog-aided device-to-device (F-D2D) networks with opportunistic content multicasting. As a part of the analysis, to resolve the contentions of file requests from the cache-incapable conventional user equipments (C-UEs), two simple yet typical candidate file selection schemes for cache-enabled fog user equipments (F-UEs), namely the random file selection (RFS) scheme and the most requested file selection (MRFS) scheme, are considered. Further, to su…
In this work, we consider a Fog Radio Access Network (F-RAN) system with a partially connected wireless topology and no channel state information available at the cloud and Edge Nodes (ENs). An F-RAN consists of ENs that are equipped with caches and connected to the cloud through fronthaul links. We first focus on the case where cloud connectivity is disabled, and hence the ENs have to satisfy the user demands based only on their cache contents. For a class of partially connected regular networks, we present a delivery scheme which combines intra-file MDS coded caching at the ENs and blind int…
We consider an unmanned aerial vehicle enabled (UAV-enabled) fog-radio access network (F-RAN) in which UAVs are considered as flying remote radio heads (RRH) equipped with caching and cooperative communications capabilities. We are mainly focus on probabilistic/randomized content placement strategy, and accordingly formulate the content placement as an optimization problem. We then study the efficiency of the proposed content placement by evaluating the average system capacity and its energy-efficiency. Our results indicate that cooperative communication plays an essential role in UAVenabled e…
Maddah-Ali and Niesen (MAN) in 2014 showed that coded caching in single bottleneck-link broadcast networks allows serving an arbitrarily large number of cache-equipped users with a total link load (bits per unit time) that does not scale with the number of users. Since then, the general topic of coded caching has generated enormous interest both from the information theoretic and (network) coding theoretic viewpoint, and from the viewpoint of applications. Building on the MAN work, this paper considers a particular network topology referred to as cache-aided Fog Radio Access Network (Fog-RAN),…
To deal with the rapid growth of high-speed and/or ultra-low latency data traffic for massive mobile users, fog radio access networks (Fog-RANs) have emerged as a promising architecture for next-generation wireless networks. In Fog-RANs, the edge nodes and user terminals possess storage, computation and communication functionalities to various degrees, which provides high flexibility for network operation, i.e., from fully centralized to fully distributed operation. In this paper, we study the cache placement problem in Fog-RANs, by taking into account flexible physical-layer transmission sche…
The device-to-device communication-aided fog radio access network, referred to as \textit{D2D-aided F-RAN}, takes advantage of caching at enhanced remote radio heads (eRRHs) and D2D proximity for improved system performance. For D2D-aided F-RAN, we develop a framework that exploits the cached contents at eRRHs, their transmission rates/powers, and previously received contents by different users to deliver the requesting contents to users with a minimum completion time. Given the intractability of the completion time minimization problem, we formulate it at each transmission by approximating th…
In a Fog-Radio Access Network (F-RAN), edge caching and fronthaul connectivity to a cloud processor are utilized for the purpose of content delivery. Additional Device-to-Device (D2D) communication capabilities can support the operation of an F-RAN by alleviating fronthaul and cloud processing load, and reducing the delivery time. In this work, basic limits on the normalized delivery time (NDT) metric, which captures the high signal-to-noise ratio worst-case latency for delivering any requested content to the users, are derived. Assuming proactive offline caching, out-of-band D2D communication…
With the proliferation of latency-critical applications, fog-radio network (FRAN) has been envisioned as a paradigm shift enabling distributed deployment of cloud-clone facilities at the network edge. In this paper, we consider proactive caching for a one-user one-access point (AP) fog computing system over a finite time horizon, in which consecutive tasks of the same type of application are temporarily correlated. Under the assumption of predicable length of the task-input bits, we formulate a long-term weighted-sum energy minimization problem with three-slot correlation to jointly optimize c…
In a Fog Radio Access Network (F-RAN) architecture, edge nodes (ENs), such as base stations, are equipped with limited-capacity caches, as well as with fronthaul links that can support given transmission rates from a cloud processor. Existing information-theoretic analyses of content delivery in F-RANs have focused on offline caching with separate content placement and delivery phases. In contrast, this work considers an online caching set-up, in which the set of popular files is time-varying and both cache replenishment and content delivery can take place in each time slot. The analysis is ce…
The fifth generation (5G) of cellular systems is introducing Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communications (URLLC) services alongside more conventional enhanced Mobile BroadBand (eMBB) traffic. Furthermore, the 5G cellular architecture is evolving from a base station-centric deployment to a fog-like set-up that accommodates a flexible functional split between cloud and edge. In this paper, a novel solution is proposed that enables the non-orthogonal coexistence of URLLC and eMBB services by processing URLLC traffic at the Edge Nodes (ENs), while eMBB communications are handled centrally at a cloud…
In this paper, we leverage reinforcement learning (RL) and cross-layer network coding (CLNC) for efficiently pre-fetching users' contents to the local caches and delivering these contents to users in a downlink fog-radio access network (F-RAN) with device-to-device (D2D) communications. In the considered system, fog access points (F-APs) and cache-enabled D2D (CE-D2D) users are equipped with local caches for alleviating traffic burden at the fronthaul, while users' contents can be easily and quickly accommodated. In CLNC, the coding decisions take users' contents, their rates, and power levels…
This paper studies a simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT)-aware fog computing network, where a multiple antenna fog function integrated hybrid access point (F-HAP) transfers information and energy to multiple heterogeneous single-antenna sensors and also helps some of them fulfill computing tasks. By jointly optimizing energy and information beamforming designs at the F-HAP, the bandwidth allocation and the computation offloading distribution, an optimization problem is formulated to minimize the required energy under communication and computation requirements, as well …
Fog Radio Access Network (F-RAN) architectures can leverage both cloud processing and edge caching for content delivery to the users. To this end, F-RAN utilizes caches at the edge nodes (ENs) and fronthaul links connecting a cloud processor to ENs. Assuming time-invariant content popularity, existing information-theoretic analyses of content delivery in F-RANs rely on offline caching with separate content placement and delivery phases. In contrast, this work focuses on the scenario in which the set of popular content is time-varying, hence necessitating the online replenishment of the ENs' ca…
