Towards next generation software-defined radio access network-architecture, deployment, and use case

As one of the key enabling technologies of the fifth generation wireless network (5G), software defined network (SDN) offers a logically centralized control model, flexible programmability, and a flow-based paradigm that is ideally suited for highly scalable wireless networks, from access to core part. Following this paradigm, a novel software-defined radio access network (SDRAN) architecture and the function modules have been proposed in this paper. In particular, the motivation, challenge, and deployment roadmap of SDRAN framework are discussed. The relationships between alternative solutions (Cloud RAN, network function virtualization) and complementary technologies (cognitive radio, self-organizing network, big data analysis) are analyzed in detail. Taking interference management of heterogeneous mobile network as the example use case, scheme design and preliminary system evaluations are given to show the benefit of SDRAN architecture.