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
Affiliations
Wilfrid Azariah
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
Fransiscus Asisi Bimo
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
Chih-Wei Lin
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
Ray-Guang Cheng
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
Navid Nikaein
Department of Communication Systems, EURECOM, Campus SophiaTech, 450 Route des Chappes, 06410 Biot, France
Rittwik Jana
Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA
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.
