5g experimental activities in flex5gware project grazie. 2016_11_02 - ieee 5g...ieee 5g summit...

Grazie5G experimental activities in Flex5Gware project

focus on RAN virtualization

Dario Sabella (Telecom Italia)

IEEE 5G Berlin SummitFraunhofer-Forum Berlin, November 2, 2016

2IEEE 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


Agenda







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

operator in Italy, as well as one

of 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, BrasilValues referred to 1H2016

http://www.telecomitalia.com/tit/en/about-us/profile.html

http://www.telecomitalia.com/tit/it/investors/financials/employees.html


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)


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/


Agenda







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


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 overall 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 of

concept for all developments in Flex5Gware

Legenda


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


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

of 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) TypeDeveloped

in

PoC#1 On chip frequency generation Standalone WP2

PoC#2Active SIW antennas with integrated power

amplifiers for K/Ka frequency bandsIntegrated WP2

PoC#3PAPR reduction and power

amplifier predistortionIntegrated 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#7HW/SW function split for energy

aware communicationsIntegrated WP4, WP5

PoC#8Reconfigurable programmable radio platform

(terminal side) and SW programming

performed and injected by the network

Integrated WP4, WP5

PoC#9Flexible, scalable and reconfigurable

small cell platformStandalone WP5

PoC#10Flexible resource allocation

in CRAN/vRAN platformStandalone 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


Agenda







The path toward a fully virtualized networkMotivation 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 mobilebroadband connections.

Operators needs

• Network deployment evolution should adapt to this demand by providing the requiredcoverage, capacity and QoS (Quality of Service). More attention to energy efficiency andoperational costs (CAPEX./OPEX)

Emerging trends

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

• Telecommunication market is already moving progressively toward virtualimplementations of EPC, and recently operators are considering with increasing attentionthe centralization (C-RAN) and virtualization (NFV) of mobile networks functionalities in astandard IT platform.

Benefits

• This will result also in an highly efficient network, able to provide the needed systemthroughput by taking care of costs and utilization efficiency, and also energy efficiencyand sustainability of the mobile network evolution.

• All these aspects are currently carefully evaluated by operators, in the view of futurenetwork deployments, suitable for additional revenue generating services.


Mobile Network path toward C-RAN and virtual RAN

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

of 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 of 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.


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

Splittedarchitecture with

BB hotelling

C-RANarchitecture

BB pooling


… 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

UEVirtual

BaseBand pool

RAP

RAP

RAP

E-UTRAN


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


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 of iJOIN

project).


Network evolution toward 5GThe 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)


Network evolution toward 5GThe 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

ApplicationServer

PCRF

eNB

UEVirtual

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).


Agenda







TIM proof-of-concept in Flex5Gware

Name of the PoC (in collaboration with UniPisa):

• Flexible resource allocation in CRAN/vRAN

platform eNB

UEVirtual

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 optimizationtechniques to strike the best trade-offs betweenperformance 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



USRP

USRPPC

Phone/dongle

Phone/dongle

USRPPhone/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



• Testbench defined.

HSS

Coordinator

EPC

(MME+GW)

OAI

eNodeB

OAI

eNodeB

OAI

eNodeB

ETHSwitch

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



• 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 FunctionalRe-composition

(DFR)

Monitoring Service

Performance-aware Resource

Management

Monitoringlibrary

Mo

du

lar

and

fle

xib

le

no

de

op

erat

ion

Mu

lti-

no

de

coo

rdin

atio

nIn

telli

gen

t p

rogr

ams

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


Agenda







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.

Turin, 21-22 June 2017

GrazieThank you

Dario [email protected]

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5g experimental activities in flex5gware project grazie. 2016_11_02 - ieee 5g...ieee 5g summit...

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