Energy Efficiency in 5G Communications – Conventional to Machine Learning Approaches

Demand for wireless and mobile data is increasing along with development of virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and extended reality (ER) applications. In order to handle ultra-high data exchange rates while offering low latency levels, fifth generation (5G) networks have been proposed. Energy efficiency is one of the key objectives of 5G networks. The notion is defined as the ratio of throughput and total power consumption, and is measured using the number of transmission bits per Joule. In this paper, we review state-of-the-art techniques ensuring good energy efficiency in 5G wireless networks. We cover the base-station on/off technique, simultaneous wireless information and power transfer, small cells, coexistence of long term evolution (LTE) and 5G, signal processing algorithms, and the latest machine learning techniques. Finally, a comparison of a few recent research papers focusing on energy-efficient hybrid beamforming designs in massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems is presented. Results show that machine learningbased designs may replace best performing conventional techniques thanks to a reduced complexity machine learning encoder