A Survey on Open Radio Access Networks: Challenges, Research Directions, and Open Source Approaches

Wilfrid Azariah; Fransiscus Asisi Bimo; Chih-Wei Lin; Ray-Guang Cheng; Navid Nikaein; Rittwik Jana

doi:10.3390/s24031038

A Survey on Open Radio Access Networks: Challenges, Research Directions, and Open Source Approaches

Sensors (Basel). 2024 Feb 5;24(3):1038. doi: 10.3390/s24031038.

Authors

Wilfrid Azariah¹, Fransiscus Asisi Bimo¹, Chih-Wei Lin¹, Ray-Guang Cheng¹, Navid Nikaein², Rittwik Jana³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, No. 43, Section 4, Keelung Rd, Da'an District, Taipei City 106335, Taiwan.
² Department of Communication Systems, EURECOM, Campus SophiaTech, 450 Route des Chappes, 06410 Biot, France.
³ Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA.

Abstract

The open radio access network (RAN) aims to bring openness and intelligence to the traditional closed and proprietary RAN technology and offer flexibility, performance improvement, and cost-efficiency in the RAN's deployment and operation. This paper provides a comprehensive survey of the Open RAN development. We briefly summarize the RAN evolution history and the state-of-the-art technologies applied to Open RAN. The Open RAN-related projects, activities, and standardization is then discussed. We then summarize the challenges and future research directions required to support the Open RAN. Finally, we discuss some solutions to tackle these issues from the open source perspective.

Keywords: O-RAN; open RAN; open source.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

This research was funded by National Science and Technology Council, Taiwan, grant number 111-2221-E-011-069-MY3, 112-2218-E-011-004, and 112-2218-E-011-006; by Chunghwa Telecom, grant number NTUST-CHT-10353; and by Auray, grant number number NTUST-Auray-11226.