Title:

Sparse Optimization Algorithms for Cloud Radio Access Networks

Abstract:

Cloud radio access network (C-RAN) is an emerging wireless cellular architecture in which the base-stations (BSs) take advantage of high-capacity backhaul links to upload signal processing and computation to a cloud-computing based central processor. The C-RAN architecture offers an enabling platform for the coordination of signaling strategies and centralized joint encoding and decoding of user messages for intercell interference mitigation across the BSs. This talk provides two examples where sparse optimization plays a key role in the design of coordinated signal processing strategies. In the first part of the talk, we develop algorithms for coordinated linear beamforming for interference alignment using matrix rank minimization techniques. In the second part of the talk, we develop sparse beamforming techniques for the downlink C-RAN and show how compressive sensing and weighted minimum mean-squared error (WMMSE) techniques can be used to solve a network utility maximization problem involving joint user scheduling, user-centric BS clustering and multi-cell beamforming in a downlink C-RAN design

Bio:

Wei Yu (S'97-M'02-SM'08-F’14) received the B.A.Sc. degree in Computer Engineering and Mathematics from the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada in 1997 and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, Stanford, CA, in 1998 and 2002, respectively. Since 2002, he has been with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where he is now Professor and holds a Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Information Theory and Wireless Communications. His main research interests include information theory, optimization, wireless communications and broadband access networks.

Prof. Wei Yu currently serves on the IEEE Information Theory Society Board of Governors (2015-17). He is an IEEE Communications Society Distinguished Lecturer (2015-16). He served as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Information Theory (2010-2013), as an Editor for IEEE Transactions on Communications (2009-2011), as an Editor for IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications (2004-2007), and as a Guest Editor for a number of special issues for the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications and the EURASIP Journal on Applied Signal Processing. He was a Technical Program co-chair of the IEEE Communication Theory Workshop in 2014, and a Technical Program Committee co-chair of the Communication Theory Symposium at the IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC) in 2012. He was a member of the Signal Processing for Communications and Networking Technical Committee of the IEEE Signal Processing Society (2008-2013). Prof. Wei Yu received a Steacie Memorial Fellowship in 2015, an IEEE Communications Society Best Tutorial Paper Award in 2015, an IEEE ICC Best Paper Award in 2013, an IEEE Signal Processing Society Best Paper Award in 2008, the McCharles Prize for Early Career Research Distinction in 2008, the Early Career Teaching Award from the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, University of Toronto in 2007, and an Early Researcher Award from Ontario in 2006. He was named a Highly Cited Researcher by Thomson Reuters in 2014.

Prof. Wei Yu is a Fellow of IEEE. He is a registered Professional Engineer in Ontario.