5G NR Logical Architecture and Its Functional Splits
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5G NR Logical Architecture and its Functional Splits 100 Innovative Way Suite 3410, Nashua, NH 03062 | (603) 589-9937 | www.parallelwireless.com Table of Contents Introduction .............................................................................................. 3 5G Enablers and Principles ..................................................................... 3 Key 5G Differences and Challenges ....................................................... 4 5G NR Radio Access Network ................................................................ 5 5G Functional Split Motivations ............................................................... 6 5G Logical Split Options .......................................................................... 7 Parallel Wireless Approach to RAN Splits ............................................... 8 OpenRAN Software Suite ........................................................................ 9 vRU ......................................................................................................... 9 RRH ......................................................................................................... 9 Parallel Wireless Dynamic Function Splitting .......................................... 9 Parallel Wireless Split 0 ......................................................................... 10 Advantages and Disadvantages ............................................................ 10 Split 7.2 ................................................................................................. 10 Architecture and Components ............................................................... 10 Advantages and Disadvantages ............................................................ 11 Summary ............................................................................................... 11 References ............................................................................................ 12 Parallel Wireless, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential Parallel Wireless, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential – Not for Distribution. This information is subject to change at Parallel Wireless’ discretion. The only warranties for Parallel Wireless products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements www.parallelwireless.com accompanying such products and services. No license to any intellectual property rights is granted by this document. Trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 5G NR Logical Architecture and its Functional Splits Introduction Centralized baseband processing was introduced several years ago to ease installation of wireless base stations in large buildings and on campuses. This was enabled by digital radio interfaces and remote radio heads (RRHs) which allowed the connection between RRHs and digital baseband units (BBUs) to be carried over fiber. The concept has subsequently been generalized to span larger areas involving many radio sites while still using a central BBU. With the increase in deployment footprint, fiber and availability of required fronthauls (FHs) became a major problem. In recent years, due to new 5G requirements, 3GPP and other standards bodies started different activities to address this issue. By distributing protocol stacks between different components (different splits), solution providers focus on addressing the tight requirements for a near perfect FH between RRHs and BBUs. Parallel Wireless’s cloud-native dynamic architecture is the only available solution for mobile operators to utilize different splits based on morphology and infrastructure availability. While for coverage deployment higher splits are more desirable, for capacity in dense urban areas lower splits will be the optimum solution. While higher level splits can utilize less than perfect FHs, lower level splits need to utilize near perfect FHs. Parallel Wireless’s solution allows mobile operators to pick and choose different splits based on the same hardware and network components by using different software implementations. Different protocol layers will reside in different components based on FH availability and morphology. This approach will dramatically reduce the cost of operations and ownership for mobile operators. 5G Enablers and Principles 5G will target new services and business models as shown in Figure 1 below. Figure 1: IMT-2020 Vision and Use Cases Parallel Wireless, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential Parallel Wireless, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential – Not for Distribution. This information is subject to change at Parallel Wireless’ discretion. The only warranties for Parallel Wireless products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements www.parallelwireless.com accompanying such products and services. No license to any intellectual property rights is granted by this document. Trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. The main 5G service types typically considered are as follows [1]: • Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB); related to human- • Massive Machine-Type Communications (mMTC); centric and enhanced access to multimedia content, services for large numbers of connected devices with services, and data with improved performance and limited amount of data to transfer and low sensitivity increasingly seamless user eXperience. This service type for latency. However, the key challenge is the fact that can be considered an evolution of 4G network services. devices are usually required to be low-cost and have a very long battery life. Key examples for this service • Ultra-Reliable and Low-Latency Communications type would be logistic applications. (URLLC); related to use cases with the most stringent requirements for capabilities such as latency, reliability, and availability. This includes wireless control of industrial manufacturing process, distributed automation in smart grids and transportation safety. It is eXpected URLLC services will provide the main platform for the 4th industrial revolution. Previous generations of mobile Radio Access Networks (RANs) were based on monolithic network functions corresponding to physical network elements. From the beginning, the 3GPP RAN working group agreed on one fundamental new concept for 5G RAN and that is the architectural split into basic modules. In this new concept network functions (NFs) are defined with proper granularity for both control plane (CP) and user plane (UP). The NFs will be defined for both RAN and core network to create a modular end-to-end network for 5G networks. This approach will enable an easier end-to-end guaranteed quality of service (QoS) and enables mobile operators to move toward a “software based” network utilizing “white box” hardware, making future upgrades simpler and more cost-effective. This approach will enable network slicing as one of the important capabilities of 5G in the future. Key 5G Differences and ChallenGes While the 5G network inherited lots of features from the previous generations of mobile networks, there are fundamental differences that need to be considered during 5G network design and deployments. These differences can be summarized as follows [1]: Higher Frequency operation and spectrum Flexibility; the range of available spectrum for 5G has eXpanded dramatically in comparison to previous generations. Unlike LTE, which supports license spectrum up to 3.5 GHz and unlicensed spectrum up to 5GHz, 5G supports licensed spectrum from below 1 GHz up to 52.6 GHz. 3GPP Release 15 divides this into two different frequency ranges (FRs) as follows: FR1: this includes eXisting bands in use, and bands below 6 GHz FR2: all new bands in the range of 24.25 GHz to 52.6 GHz Operating at mm-wave frequencies (FR2) offers the possibility for large amounts of spectrum and very wide transmission bandwidth. This will enable support of eXtremely high data rates for end-users compare to the latest LTE networks. However, it should be noted that FR2 bands are prone to higher path loss and much smaller cell coverage. These issues need to be addressed by utilizing advanced massive MIMO antenna technologies in conjunction with a dual connectivity (DC) approach for UEs to utilize FR1 and FR2 bands simultaneously. Ultra-lean design; one issue with existing RANs is the relatively high overhead due to control channel signaling. Such overhead traffic, sometimes referred to as “always-on” signals, are independent of actual user traffic and enable functionalities such as identifying the right base station and transmitting system information to UEs. Although in current LTE deployments the amount of actual signaling traffic is acceptable, the ultra-dense deployment of future 5G networks are not scalable with the present approach. 5G’s ultra-lean design principle aims to minimize the “always-on” transmissions, thereby reducing the overall network energy consumption and system interference. Forward compatibility; based on experience from evolution of previous generations, 3GPP agreed on some basic design principles to ensure a high degree of forward compatibility. Although it is difficult to guarantee Parallel Wireless, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential Parallel Wireless, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential – Not for Distribution. This information is subject to change at Parallel Wireless’ discretion. The only warranties for Parallel Wireless products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements www.parallelwireless.com accompanying such products and services. No license to any intellectual