Implementação e teste de xApps para o near-RT RIC em rede Open RAN 5G virtualizada com o OpenAirInterface

Abstract

The fifth generation of telecommunications systems (5G) has introduced ultra-fast speeds, low latency, and high reliability, enabling support for a wide range of real-time applications, from remote surgery to autonomous vehicles. Since then, there has been a demand for more efficient and intelligent control of radio resources and a way to make the design and commercialization of network infrastructure devices more flexible. These are the two goals of Open RAN networks defined by the O-RAN Alliance. The RIC (Radio Intelligent Controller) concept is highlighted in radio resource management. This component enables the dynamic control and orchestration of radio resources in real-time, intending to optimize performance and quality of service. For this optimization, among other things, RIC applications, called xApps, are used. Finally, this undergraduate thesis aims to test the 5G network infrastructure installation, including the network core, the RAN, the user equipment, and the RIC infrastructure of the open-source project OpenAirInterface (OAI). The idea is to elaborate a tutorial material for experimentation of 5G virtualized networks that can serve for research projects and active education initiatives. It is intended to contribute to the Telecommunications Engineering Course by providing educational material to be used by professors and students of the course in future undergraduate theses, integrative projects, or individual curricular components. In addition to providing instructions for setting up a virtualized 5G infrastructure, this work presents and discusses tests of an xApp for monitoring KPIs of 5G gNodeB.