Abstract
In a 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) fifth-generation (5G) virtualized radio access network (vRAN) architecture, a shared cell consists of one distributed unit (DU) instance and a group of radio units (RUs) sharing the same radio frequency (RF) parameters. Such a group of RUs act as a single cell, covering a large contiguous area in a way that is not possible with a single RU thus significantly improving the signal strength and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for the users that are in the overlapped coverage regions of the multiple RUs. While a shared cell approach addresses coverage problems with limited frequency spectrum, it suffers from a capacity issue. For example, using 3GPP-specified Synchronization Signal Block (SSB) signaling only eight RUs may be defined within a shared cell. Such a restriction can be very limiting in venues where greater than eight RUs are required to provide handover-free coverage areas. To address the types of challenges that were described above, techniques are presented herein that support a novel shared cell architecture that, for example, is suitable for enterprise use cases. Aspects of the presented techniques comprise self-discovery and organization, an unconstrained number of RUs, and low overhead. Further aspects of the presented techniques encompass the self-discovery of user equipment (UE) and RU relative positions and an exploitation of the measured RF isolation between those entities. Additionally, a smart scheduling algorithm may then be applied which multiplies cell capacity in proportion to the RF isolation.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Anderson, Fred and Potharaju, Shailender, "VRAN CAPACITY ENHANCEMENT SOLUTION BY RADIO UNIT SELF-DISCOVERY AND SELF-MANAGEMENT", Technical Disclosure Commons, (April 11, 2022)
https://www.tdcommons.org/dpubs_series/5062