FA-CRAN: A Firefly Algorithm for Dynamic BBU-RRH Mapping in Cloud/Centralized Radio Access Networks

C-RAN (Cloud Radio Access Network) is an architecture designed to the new generation of mobile networks. It has handled many problems arising from the 4-generation network, and made several improvements, such as centralized processing and energy efficiency, among others. However, time-varying traffic, known as the tidal effect, impairs the network by making resource allocation less efficient, and this affects network performance in terms of problems related to blocked users and power consumption. This study seeks to evaluate an optimized mapping model between RRH (Remote Radio Head) and BBU (Base Band Unit) by providing a fairer and more efficient load balancing. In addition, this solution is compared with some key algorithms used in the literature for addressing optimization problems. The results demonstrated that, owing to its effective search feature, the Firefly algorithm, was the most promising system, since it obtained better performance measures than the others.