Rate Splitting with Wireless Edge Caching: A System-Level-based Co-design

Rate splitting (RS) and wireless edge caching are essential means for meeting the quality of service requirements of future wireless networks. In this work, we focus on the cross-layer co-design of wireless edge caching schemes with sophisticated physical layer techniques, which facilitate non-orthogonal multiple access and interference mitigation. A flexible caching-aided RS (CRS) technique is proposed that operates in various modes that specify the cache placement at the receivers. We consider two caching policies: the intelligent coded caching (CC), as well as the well-known most popular content (MPC) policy. Both caching policies are integrated within the design parameters of RS in order to serve multiple cache-enabled receivers. The proposed technique is investigated from a system level perspective by taking into account spatial randomness. We consider a single cell network consisting of center and edge receivers and provide a comprehensive analytical framework for the evaluation of the proposed technique in terms of achieved rates. Specifically, we derive the rate achieved at each receiver under minimum rate constraints while incorporating the cache placement characteristics. Numerical results are presented which highlight the flexibility of the proposed technique and show how caching can be exploited in order to further boost the performance of RS.