  Cloud radio access network (C-RAN) has become a promising network
architecture to support the massive data traffic in the next generation
cellular networks. In a C-RAN, a massive number of low-cost remote antenna
ports (RAPs) are connected to a single baseband unit (BBU) pool via high-speed
low-latency fronthaul links, which enables efficient resource allocation and
interference management. As the RAPs are geographically distributed, the group
sparse beamforming schemes attracts extensive studies, where a subset of RAPs
is assigned to be active and a high spectral efficiency can be achieved.
However, most studies assumes that each user is equipped with a single antenna.
How to design the group sparse precoder for the multiple antenna users remains
little understood, as it requires the joint optimization of the mutual coupling
transmit and receive beamformers. This paper formulates an optimal joint RAP
selection and precoding design problem in a C-RAN with multiple antennas at
each user. Specifically, we assume a fixed transmit power constraint for each
RAP, and investigate the optimal tradeoff between the sum rate and the number
of active RAPs. Motivated by the compressive sensing theory, this paper
formulates the group sparse precoding problem by inducing the $\ell_0$-norm as
a penalty and then uses the reweighted $\ell_1$ heuristic to find a solution.
By adopting the idea of block diagonalization precoding, the problem can be
formulated as a convex optimization, and an efficient algorithm is proposed
based on its Lagrangian dual. Simulation results verify that our proposed
algorithm can achieve almost the same sum rate as that obtained from exhaustive
search.
