Enabling Virtual Radio Functions on Software Defined Radio for Future Wireless Networks

Abstract

Today's wired networks have become highly flexible, thanks to the fact that an increasing number of functionalities are realized by software rather than dedicated hardware. This trend is still in its early stages for wireless networks, but it has the potential to improve the network's flexibility and resource utilization regarding both the abundant computational resources and the scarce radio spectrum resources. In this work we provide an overview of the enabling technologies for network reconfiguration, such as Network Function Virtualization, Software Defined Networking, and Software Defined Radio. We review frequently used terminology such as softwarization, virtualization, and orchestration, and how these concepts apply to wireless networks. We introduce the concept of Virtual Radio Function, and illustrate how softwarized/virtualized radio functions can be placed and initialized at runtime, allowing radio access technologies and spectrum allocation schemes to be formed dynamically. Finally we focus on embedded Software-Defined Radio as an end device, and illustrate how to realize the placement, initialization and configuration of virtual radio functions on such kind of devices.

Software-Defined Networking Meets Software-Defined Radio in Mobile ad hoc Networks: State of the Art and Future Directions

“…Solutions to the aforementioned problems follow a gradual, step-wise approach from partial to fully flexible software reconfiguration, while efforts are made to produce a framework which is compliant to the current network virtualization context [65], [67]. These latest standardization and research efforts, such as those presented in [68]- [71], and [72], indicate that SDR has become part of the broader ''softwarization'' endeavors that relate to the design and deployment of 5G networks. The term softwarization is used in many domains and can be defined as ''moving functionality from hardware to software'', [72].…”

“…These latest standardization and research efforts, such as those presented in [68]- [71], and [72], indicate that SDR has become part of the broader ''softwarization'' endeavors that relate to the design and deployment of 5G networks. The term softwarization is used in many domains and can be defined as ''moving functionality from hardware to software'', [72]. The main objective of softwarization is to improve the flexibility of the networks that will need to support a wide spectrum of services offered to wireless devices that are no longer as homogeneous as they used to be in the previous generations of cellular networks.…”

“…In [71], a software defined radio virtualization layer, called HyDRA, that enables the execution of multiple programmable air-interfaces on top of one RF frontend is presented. The authors of [72] expand the work of [71]; the term Virtual Radio Function is introduced, while the well-known terms ''Virtualization'' and ''Orchestration'' are defined in the context of SDR. Both papers relate to the concept of radio virtualization that was introduced in [73].…”

Air‐interface virtualization using filter bank multicarrier and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing configurations

“…Wireless network virtualization is an umbrella term that encompasses wireless link virtualization, radio virtualization, and air-interface virtualization. 3,4 In this article, we use the later two interchangeably. In the literature, radio virtualization has been extensively studied.…”

5G Standalone and 4G Multi-Carrier Network-in-a-Box Using a Software Defined Radio Framework

“…The Baseband Unit (BBU) can run in the cloud (cloud RAN or C-RAN) or in a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) local server (virtual RAN or vRAN), while having a stable, high-speed connection with the Remote Radio Head (RRH). By shifting BBU to the cloud or COTS server, C-RAN and vRAN allow to split the functions of a Radio Access Technology (RAT) between dedicated hardware and software instances [ 10 ]. If implementation level of the software communication stack is highest—that is, physical layer 1 (L1) is implemented in BBU—it is possible to have direct access to samples from RRH, which now acts as the radio front-end only.…”