Abstract
This paper presents a beyond 5G fronthaul network with dynamic beamforming and -steering. The proposed fronthaul solution deploys optical beamforming (OBF) by combining space division multiplexing (SDM), analogue radio-over-fiber (ARoF), and the novel optical beam forming network (OBFN) technologies. From the service management and orchestration (MANO) point of view, the proposed fronthaul solution also deploys an advanced software defined networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) control and orchestration architecture developed with the goal to optimally manage and reconfigure the physical layer resources (i.e., optical and radio) at the central office and cell sites (i.e., pool of baseband units (BBUs), remote radio heads (RRHs), ARoF transceivers and OBFNs). The proposed beyond 5G fronthaul architecture is primarily oriented to deploy massive machine-type communication (mMTC) services with high-bandwidth requirements, such as for industry 4.0. In this paper we experimentally validate the novel OBFN system, and the dynamic SDN/NFV MANO of the transport connectivity and network services for optical beamforming. The obtained experimental results show that the overall delay for the provisioning and removal of an OBF service, considering the contribution of the involved optical and radio systems and the SDN/NFV MANO layer, is 134s and 18s respectively. The reconfiguration of the OBF service to add or remove a beam can be performed in the range of 65-87s.
Highlights
Manuscript received February 1st, 2021; revised May 11th, 2021; published Mmm dd, ZZZZ
The remote radio heads (RRHs) agent bidirectionally communicates with the respective PNF managers (PNFMs) and is responsible for the configuration of the hardware components present in the RRH, such as the power amplifiers, and for providing several monitoring parameters back to the software defined networking (SDN)/Network Function Virtualization (NFV) management and orchestration (MANO) to aid the selection of the RRHs and the configuration parameters required to serve one network service
This paper has shown the feasibility of the proposed beyond 5G fronthaul network with dynamic beamforming and -steering
Summary
Manuscript received February 1st, 2021; revised May 11th, 2021; published Mmm dd, ZZZZ. An alternative fronthaul solution deployed in the blueSPACE project is to deploy optical beamforming (OBF) by combining space division multiplexing (SDM), analogue radio-over-fiber (ARoF), and the novel optical beam forming network (OBFN) technologies [12] [13], [14]. The novel combination of OBFN technology with advanced ARoF solutions in SDM-enabled fronthaul infrastructures, allow the generation of multiple beams from a common antenna array at the CS This is enabled by the parallel transmission of data streams over the space dimension in the up- and downlink (UL and DL) direction, simplifying the design requirements and reducing the size and energy consumption of the attached RRHs [18], [19]. ETSI defines multi-access edge computing (MEC) [22]
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