NEC Develops Near Real-time RIC for High-performance 5G vRAN
NEC Corporation has developed a Near Real Time RAN Intelligent Controller (Near RT RIC) platform and RIC application that enables flexible and intelligent network control, in compliance with the O-RAN Alliance’s Virtualized Radio Access Network (vRAN) specification.
In recent years, with the rapid spread of cutting-edge technologies such as generative artificial intelligence, people have high expectations for using these technologies to provide new user experiences. As the infrastructure supporting these experiences, 5G networks require both high scalability and flexibility to effectively support new businesses, as well as mechanisms for efficiently operating existing businesses.
In order to provide advanced 5G networks that meet these requirements, NEC has developed a Near RT RIC platform that enables flexible and intelligent network control based on the vRAN specification of the O-RAN Alliance and runs on general-purpose hardware. This allows for dynamic customization of RAN (base station) settings based on business requirements and network conditions. In addition, as a RIC application running on the platform, NEC has implemented load balancing between units, ensured service level agreements (SLAs) for slicing, and achieved high reliability with acceptable latency.
Features of NEC Near RT RIC
NEC’s Near RT RIC can dynamically customize RAN operations by adding RIC applications according to different business needs, flexibly supporting quality improvement, SLA guarantee, energy saving and other functional enhancements, including:
RIC application example
- Load balancing between communities
This application can quickly solve the load imbalance between adjacent cells, and in an environment where network load fluctuates over time and location, it can improve the throughput of terminals connected to high load cells. - SLA guarantee for slicing
By dynamically optimizing the radio resources of each chip, even in congested network environments, SLA compliant Quality of Service (QoS) can be provided to terminals connected to the chip. - High reliability under acceptable latency
By using artificial intelligence to analyze acceptable latency and radio quality fluctuations, and dynamically optimizing the radio control of each terminal, the satisfaction rate of acceptable latency can be improved in an environment with high requirements for the reliability of data arrival within acceptable latency.
In addition, due to the separation of RIC control from traditional RAN functions and its operation on virtualization platforms through interfaces that comply with O-RAN alliance specifications, it can be quickly implemented.
NEC also demonstrated the effectiveness of its high reliability features, which can achieve acceptable latency in indoor testing environments using 5G vRAN.
Overview and Results of Technical Validation
NEC has built a network for remote control of mobile robots in indoor environments using 5G vRAN, and conducted demonstration experiments on RIC applications, achieving high reliability with acceptable latency. By dynamically optimizing the wireless control of each mobile robot terminal, NEC has demonstrated that when RIC is not used, packet frequencies exceeding acceptable delays can be reduced to less than 1/6 of the frequency.
Future Development
NEC will continue to contribute to improving the service quality of the mobile network market for enterprise digital transformation (DX) to ordinary users, by expanding the use of artificial intelligence to improve network quality, save power, and enhance operational autonomy through Near RT RIC applications, with the goal of advancing vRAN beyond 5G/6G.