Grazie focus on RAN virtualization Dario Sabella (Telecom Italia) - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Grazie

5G experimental activities in Flex5Gware project

focus on RAN virtualization

Dario Sabella (Telecom Italia)

IEEE 5G Berlin Summit

Fraunhofer-Forum Berlin, November 2, 2016

2 IEEE 5G Summit (Berlin, November 2, 2016)

Agenda

• Telecom Italia presentation
• Experimental activities in Flex5Gware project (5G PPP)
• The path toward CRAN and vRAN (operator perspective)
• TIM proof-of-concept on RAN virtualization
• Conclusions and remarks

3 IEEE 5G Summit (Berlin, November 2, 2016)

Agenda

• Telecom Italia presentation
• Experimental activities in Flex5Gware project (5G PPP)
• The path toward CRAN and vRAN (operator perspective)
• TIM proof-of-concept on RAN virtualization
• Conclusions and remarks

4 IEEE 5G Summit (Berlin, November 2, 2016)

Telecom Italia group 1/2

Employees

59.000

TIM lines in Italy

29.700.000

Revenues (€)

9.100.000.000

Telecom Italia is the main telecommunication and ICT

• perator in Italy, as well as one
• f the most important in Latin

America and among the main global mobile operators

Italian leader in the ICT market, active in the following sectors: fixed and mobile communications, internet and media, systems and solutions for business, R&D Strategic markets: Italy, Brasil

Values referred to 1H2016 http://www.telecomitalia.com/tit/en/about-us/profile.html http://www.telecomitalia.com/tit/it/investors/financials/employees.html

5 IEEE 5G Summit (Berlin, November 2, 2016)

Telecom Italia group 2/2

The international presence

Italy Latin america: TIM Brasil Group International Wholesale services

TI sparkle is an important global service provider, with activites on Voice, IP and data transmission for fixed and mobile operators, ISP and multinational societies (MNCs)

6 IEEE 5G Summit (Berlin, November 2, 2016)

Focus on TILAB: Wireless Innovation

Main activities of the dept.

• R&D activities, scouting, testing, performance evaluation of wireless systems

(e.g. OFDMA), study of innovative radio access technologies

• technological trials (e.g. LTE), support to engineering department
• Involvement in standardization bodies and fora (3GPP, ETSI, NGMN, …)
• And also EU funded projects, collaboration with vendors and academic world.

https://www.ict-earth.eu/ https://www.metis2020.com/ http://www.ict-ijoin.eu/

7 IEEE 5G Summit (Berlin, November 2, 2016)

Agenda

• Telecom Italia presentation
• Experimental activities in Flex5Gware project (5G PPP)
• The path toward CRAN and vRAN (operator perspective)
• TIM proof-of-concept on RAN virtualization
• Conclusions and remarks

8 IEEE 5G Summit (Berlin, November 2, 2016)

Flex5Gware project overview

Project number: 671563 Project Coordinator: Intel Technical Management: CTTC Call / topic: H2020-ICT-2014-2 /

ICT-14-2014Objective 1.1

Duration: 24 months Begin: 01 July 2015

«Flexible and efficient hardware/software platforms for 5G network elements and devices»

• Industry partners

1. Intel Mobile Comm. (DE) 2. Alcatel Lucent (DE) 3. Ericsson (SE) 4. NEC (UK) 5. Telecom Italia (IT)

• Research institutes

7. CEA (FR) 8. CNIT (IT) 9. CTTC (ES)

• 10. Fraunhofer Institut (DE)
• 11. iMinds (BE)
• 12. VTT (FI)
• SMEs

9. Sequans (FR)

• 10. TST Sistemas (ES)
• 11. WINGS (ES)
• Universities

9. KU Leuven (BE)

• 10. Univ. Carlos III de Madrid (ES)
• 11. University of Pisa (IT)

https://www.flex5gware.eu

9 IEEE 5G Summit (Berlin, November 2, 2016)

Flex5Gware project – General Picture

The overall objective of Flex5Gware is to deliver highly reconfigurable HW platforms together with HW-agnostic SW platforms targeting both network elements and devices taking into account increased capacity, reduced energy footprint, as well as scalability and modularity, to enable a smooth transition from 4G mobile wireless systems to 5G.

Objectives:

1.

Increasing HW versatility and reconfigurability

2.

Designing and developing HW-agnostic, flexible and cost-effective SW platforms

3.

Increasing the

• verall

achievable capacity provided by 5G communication platforms

4.

Decreasing the overall energy consumed by 5G communication platforms

5.

Identifying and prototyping key HW and SW building blocks and providing a proof

• f

concept for all developments in Flex5Gware

Legenda

10 IEEE 5G Summit (Berlin, November 2, 2016)

WP6 Focus: integration activities for the integrated PoCs and validation, testing and demonstration for all the PoCs (both standalone and integrated).

Very strong implementation focus  11 proofs-of-concept

11 IEEE 5G Summit (Berlin, November 2, 2016)

Flex5Gware collaboration with 5G PPP: WP6 perspective and potential joint demonstrations

• Flex5Gware will show its PoCs during a final demonstration event

at the end of the project (Turin, June 2017).

• Telecom Italia will host the Flex5Gware demonstration activities, thanks to

the presence of TILAB facilities in Turin (Italy), as already done in the past for the EARTH project demonstrator.

• The project’s intention is to also co-operate with research projects
• f complementary direction according to the 5G PPP structure, so

as to address a holistic system perspective.

• Cross-project demonstrations will be hosted as well as Flex5Gware PoCs

during the final demonstration event in Turin.

Flex5Gware PoCs

12

Innovative proof of concept PoC team (involved partners) Type

Developed in

PoC#1

On chip frequency generation

Standalone

WP2 PoC#2

Active SIW antennas with integrated power amplifiers for K/Ka frequency bands Integrated

WP2 PoC#3

PAPR reduction and power amplifier predistortion

Integrated

WP2, WP3 PoC#4

Multiband transmitter

Integrated

WP2, WP3 PoC#5

Full duplex FBMC transceiver

Integrated

WP3, WP4 PoC#6

High-speed low power resilient LDPC decoder Standalone

WP4 PoC#7

HW/SW function split for energy aware communications

Integrated

WP4, WP5 PoC#8

Reconfigurable programmable radio platform (terminal side) and SW programming performed and injected by the network Integrated

WP4, WP5 PoC#9 Flexible, scalable and reconfigurable small cell platform

Standalone

WP5 PoC#10

Flexible resource allocation in CRAN/vRAN platform

Standalone

WP5 PoC#11 Multi-Chain MIMO Transmitter

Integrated

WP2, WP3 PoC#1 PoC#2 PoC#3 PoC#4 PoC#5 PoC#6 PoC#7 PoC#8 PoC#9

PoC#10 PoC#11

13 IEEE 5G Summit (Berlin, November 2, 2016)

Agenda

• Telecom Italia presentation
• Experimental activities in Flex5Gware project (5G PPP)
• The path toward CRAN and vRAN (operator perspective)
• TIM proof-of-concept on RAN virtualization
• Conclusions and remarks

14 IEEE 5G Summit (Berlin, November 2, 2016)

The path toward a fully virtualized network

Motivation for mobile operators

Scenario

• Exponential increase in mobile traffic volume (forecast: 1000-fold increase by 2020).
• This traffic will be unevenly distributed in time and space, due to the nature of mobile

broadband connections.

Operators needs

• Network deployment evolution should adapt to this demand by providing the required

coverage, capacity and QoS (Quality of Service). More attention to energy efficiency and

• perational costs (CAPEX./OPEX)

Emerging trends

• progressive usage of cloud technologies (traditionally born within IT market) applied to
• ther business sectors (i.e. telco market), and in particular for mobile networks evolution.
• Telecommunication

market is already moving progressively toward virtual implementations of EPC, and recently operators are considering with increasing attention the centralization (C-RAN) and virtualization (NFV) of mobile networks functionalities in a standard IT platform.

Benefits

• This will result also in an highly efficient network, able to provide the needed system

throughput by taking care of costs and utilization efficiency, and also energy efficiency and sustainability of the mobile network evolution.

• All these aspects are currently carefully evaluated by operators, in the view of future

network deployments, suitable for additional revenue generating services.

15 IEEE 5G Summit (Berlin, November 2, 2016)

Mobile Network path toward C-RAN and virtual RAN

 As a consequence, a possibility for operators is to evaluate virtualization

• f networks, potentially including also RAN (Radio Access Network).

 But, before talking about vRAN, it is worth to consider C-RAN evolution

path, starting from present LTE flat architecture.

 In

fact, some evolutive steps

• f

the mobile network toward virtual RAN implementation should be envisaged (vRAN is the last step of an evolution/revolution).

 NOTE: C-RAN architecture can be applied for both macro-only and

HetNet scenarios. In this context we will refer specifically to HetNets.

16 IEEE 5G Summit (Berlin, November 2, 2016)

C-RAN evolution path …

• Compacted architecture consists in Baseband unit and Radio unit joint in

same module.

• A splitted architecture (with BB unit and Radio unit in different modules)

can be seen as a first centralization step toward C-RAN architecture.

• In C-RAN architecture baseband resources shared (pooled) across RRUs.

pRBS

Compacted architecture with

distributed BB

pRBS

Splitted architecture with

BB hotelling

C-RAN architecture

BB pooling

17 IEEE 5G Summit (Berlin, November 2, 2016)

… toward virtual RAN

• In this phase, virtualization (on general purpose HW) enables the abstraction from a particular

Operating System. This is usually done by an “hypervisor”. Some functionalities are executed running as Virtual Machines (VMs). Examples of VMs in CRAN environment are represented by single RATs or by sub-systems of the protocol stack of a RAT.

• Virtualization approach of RAN functionalities should follow the general ETSI NFV framework.

eNB

UE Virtual BaseBand pool

RAP RAP RAP

E-UTRAN

18 IEEE 5G Summit (Berlin, November 2, 2016)

virtual RAN: advantages for the operator

vRAN got all the C-RAN advantages and add the followings (due to usage of GPP HW, i.e. General Purpose Hardware):

• the operator can dynamically allocate processing resources within a

centralized baseband pool to different virtualized base stations and different air interface standards

• HW and SW totally decoupled

for both, cost and management

• simpler inter-vendor

interoperability

• cost reduction to manage,

maintain, expand and upgrade the base station

19 IEEE 5G Summit (Berlin, November 2, 2016)

virtual RAN: implementation issues

In general, in order to satisfy realtime needs given by radio systems, it may be difficult to implement all eNBs protocol stack on general purpose HW: in these cases some functionalities (typically PHY layer) are implemented on dedicated HW. In any case, full RAN centralization implies the usage of Fiber (with high capacity but also most expensive). If this cable infrastructure is not available, partial RAN centralization solutions should be evaluated. (e.g. the approach

• f

iJOIN project).

20 IEEE 5G Summit (Berlin, November 2, 2016)

Network evolution toward 5G

The need for Mobile edge computing  C-RAN architecture offers to operator the possibility to use green and efficient infrastructure in order to save costs.  Moreover, the path toward RAN virtualization will open new opportunities: HW/SW decoupling, multivendor I/O, flexible deployments, …  In addition, new 5G services will introduce more challenging QoS requirements (especially in terms of latency, energy efficiency, …) that may be difficult to fulfill only with the implementation of C-RAN.  Then, in the view of future 5G systems, a significant advancement with respect to C-RAN can be given by the introduction of mobile edge computing: moving cloud capabilities towards the network edge (i.e. eNBs)

21 IEEE 5G Summit (Berlin, November 2, 2016)

Network evolution toward 5G

The need for Mobile edge computing

 Mobile edge computing (MEC) permits to extend cloud platform for applications to the edge of the network (e.g. Base Stations), in order to improve the user experience (also thanks to the standardization of proper measurements and network APIs).

HSS MME S/P-GW Application Server PCRF

eNB

UE Virtual BaseBand pool

RAP RAP RAP

EPC E-UTRAN + MEC server + MEC server Web

This view is not in contrast with C-RAN architecture: MEC will add flexible decentralization and proper dynamic instantiation of applications, in close proximity to terminals (that are also empowered with additional capabilities through computation offloading).

22 IEEE 5G Summit (Berlin, November 2, 2016)

Agenda

• Telecom Italia presentation
• Experimental activities in Flex5Gware project (5G PPP)
• The path toward CRAN and vRAN (operator perspective)
• TIM proof-of-concept on RAN virtualization
• Conclusions and remarks

23 IEEE 5G Summit (Berlin, November 2, 2016)

TIM proof-of-concept in Flex5Gware

Name of the PoC (in collaboration with UniPisa):

• Flexible

resource allocation in CRAN/vRAN platform

eNB

UE Virtual BaseBand pool

RRH RRH RRH

E-UTRAN

Features:

• BBU pool allocation algorithms,
• constrained RRH activation patterns,
• energy-efficiency maximization, resource allocation,

robustness and reliability, using SotA optimization techniques to strike the best trade-offs between performance and energy, scale vs. resources Goal:

• design and evaluation of flexible SW

solutions in 5G networks for centralized RAN environments, through virtualization of BSs

Main ideas:

• vRAN/CRAN scenario
• PoC with phones/dongles

24 IEEE 5G Summit (Berlin, November 2, 2016)

TIM proof-of-concept in Flex5Gware

USRP USRP PC Phone/dongle Phone/dongle USRP Phone/dongle

C-RAN/vRAN server used for the BBUs

• allocation. The BBUs control the RRHs

(Micro and Macro). It contain also a Coordinator and the Intelligent Programs as developed in WP5.

• Macro cells sites are placed

considering an hexagonal grid (assuming 3 sectors per site);

• Two Micro cells per Macro sector

The surrounding noise will be generated with additional LTE node (acting as intercell interference generator).

Name of the PoC (in collaboration with UniPisa):

• Flexible resource allocation in CRAN/vRAN platform

25 IEEE 5G Summit (Berlin, November 2, 2016)

TIM proof-of-concept in Flex5Gware

• Testbench defined.

HSS Coordinator EPC (MME+GW) OAI eNodeB OAI eNodeB OAI eNodeB

ETH Switch

Eth Cable USB3.0 Cable Implemented in WP5. Integration within the PoC in next months.

Target KPI Related Use Case(s) Comment

Energy Consumption (NRG)

Dynamic Hotspots 50+ Mbps Everywhere

% of Energy saving in comparison with the solution where all the hotspots are transmitting.

User data rate (UDR)

Dynamic Hotspots 50+ Mbps Everywhere

User/cell edge Throughput (comparison with and without CoMP technique).

Flexibility, versatility, re-configurability (FVR)

Dynamic Hotspots 50+ Mbps Everywhere

Time requested to adapt the system to a change of network configuration (switch on/off of one or more cells and reallocation of the resources).

First evaluations planned according to the target KPIs

26 IEEE 5G Summit (Berlin, November 2, 2016)

TIM proof-of-concept in Flex5Gware

• Two main algorithms developed in WP5:
• Interference

Coordination: Flexible CoMP/ Coordinated Scheduling (Global Scheduler)

• Power

Efficiency: Flexible node activation/ deactivation (Global Power Manager)

• First simulation results with Coordination

show promising gains in terms of CQI, and cell tput. Next results from January.

Device (Remote) Network Controller Sensors / Actuators / Hardware

Dynamic Functional Re-composition (DFR) Monitoring Service

Performance- aware Resource Management

Monitoring library

Modular and flexible node operation Multi-node coordination Intelligent programs

Radio Engine Radio Program Local Resource Controller Radio Engine Manager Monitoring Agent

Global Scheduler

Local Scheduler Local Power Manager

Global Power Manager Parameter Value

Carrier frequency 2 GHz Bandwidth 10 MHz (50 RBs) Path loss model ITU Urban Macro Fading model Jakes Macro eNB Tx Power 40 dB Micro eNB Tx Power 26 dB eNB antenna gain 18 dB Noise figure 5 dB Cable loss 2 dB UE mobility model Stationary UE traffic model CBR, 160 Kbps

27 IEEE 5G Summit (Berlin, November 2, 2016)

Agenda

• Telecom Italia presentation
• Experimental activities in Flex5Gware project (5G PPP)
• The path toward CRAN and vRAN (operator perspective)
• TIM proof-of-concept on RAN virtualization
• Conclusions and remarks

28 IEEE 5G Summit (Berlin, November 2, 2016)

Conclusions and remarks

• Flex5Gware project (5G PPP) is focused on implementation of key HW and SW

building blocks, targeting flexible, efficient and reconfigurable HW/SW platforms, experimental activities and proof-of-concepts on 5G.

• Architecture evolution from operator perspective (starting from C-RAN toward

virtual RAN) should move toward a fully virtualized network, including the addition of mobile edge computing technologies.

• TIM is realizing a proof-of-concept on vRAN in CRAN environment.
• Flex5Gware will show its PoCs during a final event

at the end of the project.

• Cross-project demonstrations will be hosted as

well as Flex5Gware PoCs during the final demonstration event (Turin, June 2017).

• Telecom Italia will host the Flex5Gware demonstration activities, thanks to the presence of TILAB

facilities and TI Test Plant in Turin, as already done in the past for the EARTH project demonstrator.

Turi urin, , 21-22 June

ne 2017

Grazie

Thank you

Dario Sabella

dario.sabella@telecomitalia.it