5G-CLARITY: 5G-Advanced Private Networks Integrating 5GNR, WiFi, and LiFi

Abstract

The future of the manufacturing industry highly depends on digital systems that transform existing production and monitoring systems into autonomous systems fulfilling stringent requirements in terms of availability, reliability, security, low latency, and positioning with high accuracy. In order to meet such requirements, private 5G networks are considered a key enabling technology. In this paper, we introduce the 5G-CLARITY system that integrates 5G new radio (5GNR), Wi-Fi and light fidelity (LiFi) access networks, and develops novel management enablers to operate 5G-Advanced private networks. We describe three core features of 5G-CLARITY including a multi-connectivity framework, a high precision positioning server and a management system to orchestrate private network slices. These features are evaluated by means of packet level simulations and an experimental testbed demonstrating the ability of 5G-CLARITY to police access network traffic, to achieve cm-level positioning accuracy, and to provision private network slices in less than one minute.

Zero Touch Management: A Survey of Network Automation Solutions for 5G and 6G Networks

“…The work in [184] addresses the case of local 5G operators as a disruptive model for industrial Internet environments, serving the communication needs of use cases confined inside factory premises. Three architectural options are analyzed for core network slices: (i) Pure Local Architecture; (ii) MNO Architecture; and (iii) Hybrid Architecture, which contemplates the different alternatives for placing core NFs as a case of 5G Public Network Integrated Non-Public Networks (PNI-NPNs) [212]. For the hybrid environment, the authors provide a predictive placement scheme based on the history data that distributes NFs among the local 5G operator and the MNO intending to reduce the latency as well as the number of local NFs.…”

Enhanced Access Traffic Steering Splitting Switching with Utility-Based Decisioning

“…Based on performance measurement results provided by PMF, the SMF updates the ATSSS rules and configures updated rules to UE and UPF. Although 3GPP does not mandate the specific implementation of the ATSSS steering function, it allows for different options such as MPTCP [10] used in 5G-CLARITY project [9].…”

“…The motivation behind introducing such an enhancement is to mitigate the noted drawbacks of the current ATSSS in the 3GPP system. Moreover, in this paper, IEEE 802.11 based light fidelity (LiFi) network which is an indoor optical wireless communication system [7]- [9] is considered as part of an integrated non-3GPP access network along with Wi-Fi. Also, the considered underlying system is based on the 5G-CLARITY system described in [9, Fig.…”

“…This paper focuses on ATSSS algorithm and its performance evaluation. Hence, interested readers are referred to[9] for further details on the system architecture.…”

NLP Powered Intent Based Network Management for Private 5G Networks

“…In this regard, Machine Learning (ML) is seen as a key enabler to autonomously fill the missing context required to translate high level intents into low level network configurations [3]. A relevant example of the configuration complexity incurred in private 5G networks is provided in [4], where the authors introduce 5G-CLARITY, which is a novel architecture for 5G private networks integrating 5GNR, Wi-Fi and Li-Fi access networks. The 5G-CLARITY architecture is composed of three strata, namely an infrastructure stratum, a virtualised network and application function stratum and a management and orchestration stratum, and provides support for multi-connectivity, positioning and slice provisioning.…”