Kiela Karolis, Jurgo Marijan, Macaitis Vytautas, Navickas Romualdas
Lime Microsystems, Surrey Tech Centre, Occam Road, The Surrey Research Park, Guildford GU2 7YG, Surrey, UK.
Micro and Nanoelectronics Systems Design and Research Laboratory, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, 10257 Vilnius, Lithuania.
Sensors (Basel). 2021 Aug 22;21(16):5653. doi: 10.3390/s21165653.
In this work, an open Radio Access Network (RAN), compatible, scalable and highly flexible Software Defined Radio (SDR)-based Remote Radio Head (RRH) framework is proposed and designed. Such framework can be used to implement flexible wideband radio solutions, which can be deployed in any region, have common radio management features, and support various channel bandwidths. Moreover, it enables easier access for researchers to nonsimulated cellular networks, reduce system development time, provide test and measurement capabilities, and support existing and emerging wireless communication technologies. The performance of the proposed SDR framework is validated by creating a Network-in-a-Box (NIB) that can operate in multiband multicarrier 4G or 5G standalone (SA) configurations, with an output power of up to 33 dBm. Measurement results show, that the 4G and 5G NIB can achieve, respectively, up to 883 Mbps and 765 Mbps downlink data transfer speeds for a 100 MHz aggregated bandwidth. However, if six carriers are used in the 4G NIB, 1062 Mbps downlink data transfer speed can be achieved. When single user equipment (UE) is used, maximum uplink data transfer speed is 65.8 Mbps and 92.6 Mbps in case of 4G and 5G, respectively. The average packet latency in case of 5G is up to 45.1% lower than 4G. CPU load by the eNodeB and gNodeB is proportional to occupied bandwidth, but under the same aggregated DL bandwidth conditions, gNodeB load on the CPU is lower. Moreover, if only 1 UE is active, under same aggregated bandwidth conditions, the EPC CPU load is up to four times lower than the 5GC.
在这项工作中，提出并设计了一种开放的基于软件定义无线电（SDR）的无线接入网（RAN）框架，该框架兼容、可扩展且高度灵活，适用于远程无线头端（RRH）。这种框架可用于实现灵活的宽带无线电解决方案，该方案可部署在任何区域，具有通用的无线电管理功能，并支持各种信道带宽。此外，它使研究人员能够更轻松地接入非模拟蜂窝网络，减少系统开发时间，提供测试和测量能力，并支持现有和新兴的无线通信技术。通过创建一个可在多频段多载波4G或5G独立（SA）配置下运行、输出功率高达33 dBm的盒式网络（NIB），对所提出的SDR框架的性能进行了验证。测量结果表明，对于100 MHz的聚合带宽，4G和5G NIB的下行数据传输速度分别可达883 Mbps和765 Mbps。然而，如果在4G NIB中使用六个载波，则可实现1062 Mbps的下行数据传输速度。当使用单个用户设备（UE）时，4G和5G情况下的最大上行数据传输速度分别为65.8 Mbps和92.6 Mbps。5G情况下的平均分组延迟比4G低多达45.1%。演进型基站（eNodeB）和5G基站（gNodeB）的CPU负载与占用带宽成正比，但在相同的聚合下行链路带宽条件下，gNodeB的CPU负载较低。此外，如果只有1个UE处于活动状态，在相同的聚合带宽条件下，演进分组核心网（EPC）的CPU负载比5G核心网（5GC）低多达四倍。
