Software-defined Communication Platform Implementation on Commodity Hardware

Thumbnail Image
Files
isbn9789526408682.pdf (614.21 KB)
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
School of Electrical Engineering | Doctoral thesis (article-based) | Defence date: 2022-08-12
Unless otherwise stated, all rights belong to the author. You may download, display and print this publication for Your own personal use. Commercial use is prohibited.
Author
Date
2022
Department
Tietoliikenne- ja tietoverkkotekniikan laitos
Department of Communications and Networking
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Language
en
Pages
84 + app. 104
Series
Aalto University publication series DOCTORAL THESES, 95/2022
Abstract
Radio access networks face increasingly diversified and strict demands from applications. The diverse needs of users cannot be satisfied by a single approach. Networks must evolve into flexible platforms offering per-user service customized to the needs of each application. Meeting the increased coverage and capacity demands of applications also requires network densification. Mobile network operators are confronted with the need to improve their service offerings while keeping the capital and operational expenditure of densified networks under control. Expanding the network using traditional base station designs presents cost and interference challenges. Introducing a functional split between central and distributed units enables better co-ordination and cheaper distributed units situated closer to cell sites. This thesis contributes to software-based soft—real-time radio access networks (RAN) implementation using commodity hardware. Techniques are presented for implementing software-defined radio nodes effectively. The overall aim is to exploit the benefits of commodity hardware while mitigating the challenges caused by its focus on throughput and polyvalency over low latency and determinism. This work details an architecture for decoupling the communication protocol code from the underlying platform. The approach used is to hide and recover from deadline misses instead of being overly conservative in an effort to provide guarantees. The benefits afforded by increased flexibility in the RAN outweigh occasional lost data due to deadline overruns. The strict requirements on latency imposed by the time domain structure of air interface protocol creates challenges for power management. A method for latency-aware power management is proposed to help solve this. Building on the above, this thesis also investigates disaggregated multi-node RAN implementations. Dividing RAN functionality into physically separate nodes introduces additional latency. The midhaul linking these nodes together becomes an important factor of performance analysis. The research in this thesis presents models for characterizing the behaviour of the midhaul. Models provide tools to assess which functional splits are suitable for a particular scenario. The validity of the techniques and models presented in this thesis are verified through the use of testbeds. Prototype implementations show the viability of building soft—real-time software-based RANs on commodity hardware. The feasibility of midhaul-based disaggregated designs is demonstrated through the use of user equipment positioning as a test application. The results obtained show soft—real-time commodity hardware designs can enable novel RAN architectures.
Description
Supervising professor
Tirkkonen, Olav Prof., Aalto University, Department of Communications and Networking, Finland
Thesis advisor
Ruttik, Kalle, Dr., Aalto University, Finland
Keywords
software-defined radio, cloud radio access networks, cellular network architectures
Other note
Parts
  • [Publication 1]: Jussi Kerttula, Nicolas Malm, Kalle Ruttik, Riku Jäntti and Olav Tirkkonen. Implementing TD-LTE as software defined radio in general purposeprocessor. In Proc. ACM Workshop of Software Radio Implementation Forum, pp. 61–67, August 2014.
    DOI: 10.1145/2627788.2627793 View at publisher
  • [Publication 2]: Nicolas Malm, Kalle Ruttik and Olav Tirkkonen. Latency-Aware Power Management in Software-Defined Radios. Journal of Electrical andComputer Engineering, Volume 2020 pp. 1–19, February 2020.
    Full text in Acris/Aaltodoc: http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202004032679
    DOI: 10.1155/2020/1854826 View at publisher
  • [Publication 3]: Nicolas Malm, Liang Zhou, Estifanos Menta, Kalle Ruttik, Riku Jäntti, Olav Tirkkonen, Mário Costa and Kari Leppänen. User LocalizationEnabled Ultra-dense Network Testbed. In Proc. IEEE 5G World Forum, pp. 405–409, July 2018.
    Full text in Acris/Aaltodoc: http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-201812216712
    DOI: 10.1109/5GWF.2018.8517071 View at publisher
  • [Publication 4]: Estifanos Yohannes Menta, Nicolas Malm, Riku Jäntti, Kalle Ruttik, Mário Costa and Kari Leppänen. On the Performance of AoA based Localization in 5G Ultra Dense Networks. IEEE Access, Volume 7 pp. 33870–33880, March 2019.
    Full text in Acris/Aaltodoc: http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-201905062883
    DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2903633 View at publisher
  • [Publication 5]: Nicolas Malm, Kalle Ruttik and Olav Tirkkonen. Midhaul Performance Modelling Using Commodity Hardware C-RAN Testbed. Submitted toWireless Personal Communications, February 2022
  • [Publication 6]: Nicolas Malm and Olav Tirkkonen. Scheduling Latency of Midhaulbased Commodity Hardware C-RAN. IEEE 4th 5G World Forum (5GWF),pp. 7-12, November 2021.
    Full text in Acris/Aaltodoc: http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-2021121510726
    DOI: 10.1109/5GWF52925.2021.00009 View at publisher
Citation
Permanent link to this item
https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-64-0868-2
Collections
[diss] Sähkötekniikan korkeakoulu / ELEC