Green-oriented multi-techno link adaptation metrics for 5G heterogeneous networks

Fifth generation (5G) technical requirements turned toward end-to-end capacity increase with limited latency and constant network power consumption involve dedicated research topics. Multiple radio access techniques are one of the most promising paradigm safeguarding throughput increase and seamless connectivity in heterogeneous networks. Link adaptation metrics are then required to achieve radio link selection and multiple interface management. Following mobile network capacity increase trends, link adaptation metrics focused on spectrum efficiency maximization are implicitly sought, involving high network power consumption. This paper presents a novel link adaptation metric turned toward a power efficient radio link selection which warrants QoS and performs a fair comparison between independent air interfaces in a multiple radio access technique context. A procedure is proposed to practically evaluate the metric upon each air interface, thanks to the introducion of new normalized propagation selectivity parameters with respect to system parameters allowing a unified characterization of the propagation link reliability, tuning up the metric decision. Performance and transmit power gains resulting from the metric application are appraised upon wireless hot spot extensions covering 5GHz and 60GHz Wi-Fi technologies and mm-wave ultra-wide-band transmissions.