Real-time RIC for designed for high-performance 5G vRAN
Enabling an advanced 5G network that supports new user experiences based on AI, the Near-RT RIC platform developed by NEC Corporation delivers flexible and intelligent network control per O-RAN Alliance specifications for vRAN and runs on general-purpose hardware.
Providers can dynamically customise RAN (base station) settings according to service requirements and network conditions. Furthermore, with RIC applications running on the platform, NEC has implemented functions for load balancing between cells, guaranteeing the Service Level Agreement (SLA) for slices, and achieving high reliability with acceptable latency.
The platform can flexibly support functional enhancements such as quality improvement, SLA guarantees, and power saving by dynamically customising RAN operations in response to diversifying service requirements by adding RIC applications, including:
- Load balancing between cells — the application can quickly resolve load imbalances between adjacent cells, and in environments where network load fluctuates depending on time of day and location, it can improve the throughput of terminals connected to cells with high load.
- SLA guarantee for slices — by dynamically optimising the radio resources for each slice, it is possible to provide quality of service (QoS) in conformance with the SLA to the terminals connected to the slice, even in a congested network environment.
- High reliability with acceptable latency — by using AI to analyse acceptable latency and fluctuations in radio quality and dynamically optimising radio control for each terminal, it is possible to increase the satisfaction rate of acceptable latency in environments where there is a high demand for reliability in the arrival of data within an acceptable latency.
Furthermore, since RIC control is separated from conventional RAN functions and operates on a virtualised platform via an interface that complies with O-RAN Alliance specifications, it is possible to quickly incorporate hardware and software innovations related to AI.
By using these mechanisms to automate and make RAN operations more autonomous, it is possible to continuously improve the value of vRAN while keeping the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) down.
To demonstrate the effectiveness of achieving acceptable latency in an indoor test environment using 5G vRAN, NEC built an indoor network for remotely controlling mobile robots and conducted a demonstration experiment of an RIC application that achieves highly reliable acceptable latency. By dynamically optimising radio control for each mobile robot terminal, NEC demonstrated that the frequency of packets exceeding the acceptable latency could be reduced to less than 1/6 of the frequency when RIC was not used.
In the future, NEC will continue to contribute to improving service quality in the mobile network market, from corporate digital transformation (DX) to general users, by expanding Near-RT RIC applications that improve network quality, save power, and improve operational autonomy using AI, to achieve the advancement of vRAN with an eye on Beyond 5G/6G.
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