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We consider the energy-efficient mobility-aware content caching problem with clustered small cells (SCs) in ultra-dense networks (UDNs). The UDN is regarded as one of the key solutions to overcome the explosive growth of mobile data traffic and consequential energy consumption. In addition, caching the popular contents at the edge of UDNs can further mitigate the challenges of traffic and energy. In this paper, we group the SCs into disjoint clusters and model the mobility of users between clusters as a Markov chain. We formulate the caching problem aimed at minimizing the overall energy consumption for content delivery to the moving users. Then we decompose the complicated task of energy consumption optimization in cache-enabled UDNs into two sub-problems. In the first sub-problem, we formulate the inter-cluster caching problem as minimizing the energy consumption for serving a user request by the macro base station. We show that the first sub-problem is NP-hard, and develop a polynomial-heuristic algorithm. Further, we define the mobility-oblivious version of the sub-problem, and provide a ${\textstyle {1 \over {2k }}}$ -approximation solution for the mobility-aware based on this mobility-oblivious version. In the second sub-problem, we consider the heterogeneity of small cells and define the intra-cluster caching problem. The aim of this sub-problem is the placement of content in different SCs within the cluster so that the energy consumption for the content delivery in that cluster is minimized. In particular, the second sub-problem fits the general framework of the generalized assignment problem, which allows us to exploit its rich literature, to determine the optimal solution for our problem. Through extensive simulations based on real wireless data and human mobility patterns, we demonstrate the benefits of our approach that is even up to 56% better compared to the conventional caching schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Next-generation wireless communications are expected to provide reliable high-rate connectivity. The recent concept of fog-enabled architecture comes to rescue by invoking a substantial amount of data storage close to end-user devices for meeting these challenges. Thus, caching popular contents at heterogeneous devices, e.g., fog nodes (FNs) or fog access points (FAPs), constitutes a promising technique of reducing both the traffic and the energy consumption of the backhaul links. Therefore, in this paper, we propose an energy-efficient caching and node association algorithm for cache-aided fog networks. First, we solve the problem of energy-efficient content caching and delivery in the FNs/FAPs in conjunction with a fixed node association strategy, where the FNs communicate either with other FNs by node-to-node (N2N) communications or with the FAPs in their proximity. In both caching scenarios, we investigate the relationship between the caching probability of the file and the energy-efficient content delivery by formulating the associated energy efficiency (EE) optimization problem under caching memory constraints. Then, we derive a joint modulation mode allocation strategy and caching policy for each content caching node and conceive a joint node association and caching algorithm for maximizing the EE. Finally, we quantify both the overall EE and throughput for demonstrating that the proposed caching and transmission strategy achieves significant performance improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Cache-enabled dense small cell networks (DSCNs), energy consumption and file delivery delay are two critical performance metrics. On the other hand, power control is an essential mechanism to mitigate inter-cell interference in DSCNs. However, the impact of power control at small base stations (SBSs) on the system performance when caches are involved has not been well studied. Observing energy consumption and file delivery delay are coupled with each other in cache-enabled DSCNs, different from existing studies, we attempt to optimize these two performance metrics at the same time, taking into account sophisticated power control at SBSs. Firstly, we formulate the energy-delay optimization problem as a utility maximization problem, where cooperative power control among SBSs, file placement and user association are considered. Then, we solve the optimization problem in two stages (i.e., caching stage and delivery stage), based on the fact that caching is performed during off-peak time. At the caching stage, a local popular file placement policy is proposed by estimating user preference at each SBS. At the delivery stage, with given caching status at SBSs, the optimization problem is further decomposed by Benders’ decomposition method. An efficient algorithm is proposed to approach the optimal association and power solution by iteratively shrinking the gap of the upper and lower bounds. Finally, extensive simulations are performed to validate our analytical and algorithmic work. The results demonstrate that the proposed algorithms can achieve a better tradeoff between energy consumption and file delivery delay than the existing algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]