COMIX: Generalized Conflict Management in O-RAN xApps -- Architecture, Workflow, and a Power Control case

TL;DR

This paper presents COMIX, a conflict management framework for O-RAN xApps that detects and resolves conflicting actions, improving network performance and energy efficiency through a standardized mitigation approach and digital twin evaluation.

Contribution

It introduces a generalized conflict management scheme for O-RAN xApps, utilizing a conflict mitigation framework and digital twin for conflict detection and resolution.

Findings

Effective conflict resolution improves network energy savings.

COMIX balances conflicting objectives in power control xApps.

Validation shows significant performance gains over baseline methods.

Abstract

Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) is transforming the telecommunications landscape by enabling flexible, intelligent, and multi-vendor networks. Central to its architecture are xApps hosted on the Near-Real-Time RAN Intelligent Controller (Near-RT RIC), which optimize network functions in real time. However, the concurrent operation of multiple xApps with conflicting objectives can lead to suboptimal performance. This paper introduces a generalized Conflict Management scheme for Multi-Channel Power Control in O-RAN xApps (COMIX), designed to detect and resolve conflicts between xApps. To demonstrate COMIX, we focus on two Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL)-based xApps for power control: one maximizes the data rare across UEs, and the other optimizes system-level energy efficiency. COMIX employs a standardized Conflict Mitigation Framework (CMF) for conflict detection and resolution and leverages the Network Digital Twin (NDT) to evaluate the impact of conflicting actions before applying them to the live network. We validate the framework using a realistic multi-channel power control scenario under various conflict resolution policies, demonstrating its effectiveness in balancing antagonistic objectives. Our results highlight significant network energy savings achieved through the conflict management scheme compared to baseline CMF-free methods.