Intelligent O-RAN for Beyond 5G and 6G Wireless Networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces the concept of Intelligent O-RAN, an open and intelligent radio access network architecture designed for beyond 5G and 6G wireless networks, emphasizing its principles, requirements, and practical resource management scheme.

Contribution

It provides an overview of O-RAN principles and proposes an intelligent radio resource management scheme validated on real-world data, highlighting future research challenges.

Findings

Effective traffic congestion handling demonstrated on real-world data

Proposed architecture aligns with O-RAN requirements

Identified key technical challenges for future development

Abstract

Building on the principles of openness and intelligence, there has been a concerted global effort from the operators towards enhancing the radio access network (RAN) architecture. The objective is to build an operator-defined RAN architecture (and associated interfaces) on open hardware that provides intelligent radio control for beyond fifth generation (5G) as well as future sixth generation (6G) wireless networks. Specifically, the open-radio access network (O-RAN) alliance has been formed by merging xRAN forum and C-RAN alliance to formally define the requirements that would help achieve this objective. Owing to the importance of O-RAN in the current wireless landscape, this article provides an introduction to the concepts, principles, and requirements of the Open RAN as specified by the O-RAN alliance. In order to illustrate the role of intelligence in O-RAN, we propose an intelligent radio resource management scheme to handle traffic congestion and demonstrate its efficacy on a real-world dataset obtained from a large operator. A high-level architecture of this deployment scenario that is compliant with the O-RAN requirements is also discussed. The article concludes with key technical challenges and open problems for future research and development.