As networks evolve towards 6G, Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) must accommodate diverse requirements and at the same time manage rising energy consumption. Integrated Access and Backhaul (IAB) networks facilitate dense cellular deployments with reduced infrastructure complexity. However, the multi-hop wireless backhauling in IAB networks necessitates proper routing and resource allocation decisions to meet the performance requirements. At the same time, cell densification makes energy optimization crucial. This paper addresses the joint optimization of routing and resource allocation in IAB networks through two distinct objectives: energy minimization and throughput maximization. We develop a novel capacity model that links power levels to achievable data rates. We propose two practical large-scale approaches to solve the optimization problems and leverage the closed-loop control framework introduced by the Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) architecture to integrate the solutions. The approaches are evaluated on diverse scenarios built upon open data of two months of traffic collected by network operators in the city of Milan, Italy. Results show that the proposed approaches effectively reduces number of activated nodes to save energy and achieves approximately 100 Mbps of minimum data rate per User Equipment (UE) during peak hours of the day using spectrum within the Frequency Range (FR) 3, or upper midband. The results validate the practical applicability of our framework for next-generation IAB network deployment and optimization.

翻译：随着网络向6G演进，移动网络运营商必须满足多样化需求，同时应对日益增长的能耗问题。集成接入与回传网络通过降低基础设施复杂度，实现了密集蜂窝部署。然而，IAB网络中的多跳无线回传要求合理的路由与资源分配决策以满足性能需求，同时小区密集化使得能量优化至关重要。本文针对IAB网络中的路由与资源分配联合优化问题，以能量最小化和吞吐量最大化两个不同目标展开研究。我们提出了一种新颖的容量模型，将功率等级与可达数据速率相关联，并设计了两种实用的大规模优化求解方法，同时利用开放无线接入网络架构引入的闭环控制框架整合解决方案。基于意大利米兰市运营商两个月公开交通数据的多场景评估表明，所提方法能有效减少激活节点数量以节省能量，并在高峰时段利用频率范围3（即上中频段）频谱，为每个用户设备实现约100Mbps的最小数据速率。结果验证了本框架在下一代IAB网络部署与优化中的实际适用性。