Controlling Next-Generation Software-Defined RANs

Abstract

Compared to previous mobile generations, the 5G system architecture offers more flexibility to fulfill a richer set of diverse requirements. Three system aspects play a major role here: support of network slicing, a split between the user plane and the control plane, and a service oriented control architecture. Emerging techniques of network softwarization such as Software-Defined Networking (SDN) are leveraged to provide this notion of flexibility manifested in a Software-Defined core network. However, in addition to the 5G Core (5GC), analogous concepts could be applied to the Next Generation Radio Access Network (NG-RAN) to sustain the required system performance. Driven by the increased attention that is currently paid to a Software-Defined Radio Access Network (SD-RAN), in this article, we propose the Radio Access Network Control Function (RANCF) as an additional 5G control function. We define the main functionalities of RANCF and propose interfaces and protocols for the interaction with 5GC functions. Exploiting network slicing as an example, we demonstrate how RANCF facilitates the slice selection and slice management procedure.

Performance Analysis for Control- and User-Plane Separation Based RAN With Non-Uniformly Distributed Users

“…where h 0 , r 0 are the channel gain and distance between D 0 and user, (e) holds because when D 0 is not an interference source, I 0 = 0 and thus exp (−sI 0 ) = 1 with a probability 1 − 1/K d , (f ) holds because h 0 follows exponential distribution. The PDF of r 0 is derived from (5). However, since D 0 is not the nearest DBS, the calculation of the PDF needs to account for the location of…”

“…On the other hand, one of the 6G visions is to provide full-dimensional wireless coverage [3], [4]. As a potential architecture for the wireless networks' coverage enhancement [5], control-and user-plane separation (CUPS) has been introduced in cellular radio access networks (RANs) as an emerging technology in mobile networks.…”

User-Based Quality of Service Aware Multi-Cell Radio Access Network Slicing

“…To that end, we follow the architecture proposed in [49] as well as the software-defined radio access network (SD-RAN) paradigm. The architecture presented in Fig.…”

Measuring, Modeling and Integrating Time-Varying Video Quality in End-to-End Multimedia Service Delivery: A Review and Open Challenges

“…The QoE monitoring frequency depends on the time interval of optimization, accuracy/data requirements of optimization algorithm(s), and time-period for the optimization [257]. For example, if the optimization is being performed at O-RAN near-real-time RIC then extremely low latency is required which needs secure fast information retrieval as compared to the optimization being performed at O-RAN non-real-time RIC [258], [259].…”