ONF announced that it has achieved its first milestone in the SMaRT-5G project with the successful demonstration of an intelligent cell on/off RAN energy savings application (rApp) that works hand-in-hand with a traffic steering application (xApp), ensuring quality of service while optimizing RAN energy consumption. These Integrated xApp and rApp applications, implemented entirely in open source, will first be demonstrated at Fyuz (October 9-11 in Madrid, Spain) in ONF’s booth, #35.
Components of the demonstration include: Rimedo Labs has developed the Energy Saving rApp (ES-rApp) and Traffic Steering xApp (TS-xApp) software applications that work together in a closed-loop to monitor and control the RAN as a cohesive system to achieve RAN energy savings, without losing quality of service; Near-RealTime RIC and the RAN Simulator (RANSim) are both integral elements of ONF’s SD-RAN platform; Service Management Orchestration (SMO) builds on ONAP and the Non-RealTime RIC from the O-RAN Software Community (OSC), as optimized and packaged by ONF to create this integrated demo; Tietoevry has provided system integration support, including required O-RAN architecture interface implementation and x/rApp adaptations, in addition to test services, enabling this cohesive demonstration.
In this demonstration, the RAN Simulator simulates a working network supporting O-RAN specified interfaces, modeling two cells (cell-1 and cell-2) located in the same sector and providing overlapping coverage. Normally cell-1 and cell-2 share network load. The ES-rApp proactively monitors the load on both cells via O1 and determines if the capacity cell (cell-2) is underutilized and can be powered off such that cell-1 can take over the load without any performance degradation. If so, the rApp commands the TS-xApp via A1, to move the traffic served by cell-2 to cell-1 such that cell-2 can be idled temporarily, thereby making the cell a candidate for shutdown. The redirection of load from one cell to another is seamless and does not impact the end-user experience.
Once the xApp has completed steering all the traffic to cell-1, the rApp will subsequently shut down cell-2 (via the O1 interface). The rApp will then continue to monitor the load on cell-1 and once cell-1 load is above a predefined threshold, cell-2 is reactivated via O1, and the load is rebalanced between the two cells ensuring performance is maintained and without impact to the end user experience.
The SMaRT-5G project is focused on developing, demonstrating, and open-sourcing advanced intelligent energy savings for mobile networks. Initial collaborators include Aira Technologies, AirHop Communications, Intel, Rimedo Labs, Tietoevry, Telecom Infra Project (TIP), and Rutgers WINLAB, and we invite more organizations to join this exciting community effort. If you would like to get more information, complete this form, and project leadership will be in touch.
Tell Us What You Think!