Next-Generation Optical Fronthaul in the iCirrus Project

Elbers, Jörg-Peter; Zou, Jim; Asimakopoulos, Philippos; Gomes, Nathan J.; Habel, Kai; Jungnickel, Volker; Linne, Gregor; Juchems, Christoph; Chanclou, Philippe; Ritosa, Patrik; Thomas, Howard

doi:10.1364/ofc.2018.m3d.1

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Buffering and waveform replay could be used to minimize effects of delay variation in a packet-based, Ethernet fronthaul, and enable benefits from statistical multiplexing, but strict replay timing will be needed for intersite cooperation, joint transmission/reception and accurate localization. Synchronous Ethernet and Precision Timing Protocols, together with time-sensitive networking techniques will be required [22]. For option 7.1 and analog transport, there is no opportunity for statistical multiplexing and packet-based transport.…”

Section: Delay Requirementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optical Fronthaul Options for Meeting 5G Requirements

Assimakopoulos

2018

2018 20th International Conference on Transparent Optical Networks (ICTON)

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Section: Delay Requirementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optical Fronthaul Options for Meeting 5G Requirements

Assimakopoulos

2018

2018 20th International Conference on Transparent Optical Networks (ICTON)

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“…The Common Public Rate Interface (CPRI) [2] has been defined to transport the radio samples between the BBUs and the RRUs through the fronthaul network. The main proposed solutions are: Dark fiber [1,5,6], Passive WDM [1,5], WDM/OTN [7,8], WDM/PON [9,10], and Ethernet [11,12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ethernet [11,12] illustrated in Figure 1e: This technology is based on the transport of CPRI flows in Ethernet circuits. the new specification eCPRI [14] has been defining some functional decomposition options and its scope is to enable efficient and flexible radio data transmission via a packet based fronthaul transport network like IP or Ethernet.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Unfortunately, it does not support the high-precision synchronization needed in CPRI technology and for this reason the IEEE has set up the 802.1 Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) task group to study the latency-sensitive Ethernet forwarding technology and set up the 1914 Next Generation Fronthaul Interface (NGFI) working group to study CPRI over Ethernet and new Ethernet-based next generation fronthaul interfaces. Some interesting Ethernet-based solutions have been implemented in the Horizon2020 iCirrus project [12] but delay and jitter performance are not provided by the authors. The investigated techniques are preliminary and still in a study phase.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Dimensioning Models of Optical WDM Rings in Xhaul Access Architectures for the Transport of Ethernet/CPRI Traffic

et al. 2018

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The Centralized Radio Access Network (C-RAN) provides a valid solution to overcome the problem of traditional RAN in scaling up to the needed processing resource and quality expected in 5G. The Common Public Rate Interface has been defined to transport traffic flows in C-RAN and recently some market solutions are available. Its disadvantage is to increase by at least 10 times the needed bandwidth and for this reason its introduction will be gradual and will coexist with traditional RAN solutions in which Ethernet traffic is carried towards the radio base stations. In this paper, we propose an Xhaul optical network architecture based on Optical Transport Network (OTN) and Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technologies. The network allows for a dynamic allocation of the bandwidth resources according to the current traffic demand. The network topology is composed of OTN/DWDM rings and the objective of the paper is to evaluate the best configuration (number of rings and number of wavelengths needed) to both to minimize the cost and to provide an implementable solution. We introduce an analytical model for the evaluation of the number of wavelengths needed in each optical ring and provide some results for 5G case studies. We show how, although the single ring configuration provides the least cost solution due to the high statistical multiplexing advantage, it is not implementable because it needs switching apparatus with a too high number of ports. For this reason, more than one ring is needed and its value depends on several parameters as the offered traffic, the number of Radio Remote Units (RRU), the percentage of business sub-area and so on. Finally, the analytical model allows us to evaluate the advantages of the proposed dynamic resource allocation solution with respect to the static one in which the network is provided with a number of wavelengths determined in the scenario in which the radio station works at full load. The bandwidth saving can be in the order of 90% in a 5G traffic scenario.

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Testbed Verification of New Fronthaul Technology for 5G Systems

Gomes

Assimakopoulos

Chanclou

et al. 2019

2019 IEEE International Conference on Communications Workshops (ICC Workshops)

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The fronthaul for 5 th generation mobile systems (and beyond) has evolved with new splits for the radio access network functions defined, and the transport for these split interfaces having very different requirements. Testing of the transport for such split interfaces is reported, and it is shown that an Ethernet fronthaul transport network, which is capable of bringing efficiency gains through statistical multiplexing, can meet stringent latency and latency variation requirements, assuming buffering and playout of the radio waveforms and that timing/synchronization signals are prioritized. An aggregation technique for a 100 Gb/s Ethernet trunk which provides for such timing signals is demonstrated. Real-time monitoring of the Ethernet fronthaul for software-defined networking control and performance optimization is also shown.

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Next-Generation Optical Fronthaul in the iCirrus Project

Abstract: The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record.

Cited by 3 publications

References 3 publications

Optical Fronthaul Options for Meeting 5G Requirements

Optical Fronthaul Options for Meeting 5G Requirements

Dimensioning Models of Optical WDM Rings in Xhaul Access Architectures for the Transport of Ethernet/CPRI Traffic

Testbed Verification of New Fronthaul Technology for 5G Systems

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