Unit-III

Q1. What do you mean by Radio Access Network (RAN)? Explain C-RAN
in detail.
A RAN (radio access network) is a type of network infrastructure used
commonly for mobile networks that consist of radio base stations with large
antennas. The primary purpose of a RAN is to wirelessly connect user equipment.

In a RAN, the radio unit (RU) processes digital radio signals and transmits,
receives, and converts the signals for the RAN base station. When the RU
receives signal information from the antennas, it communicates with the baseband
unit (BBU) using the Common Public Radio Interface (CPRI). The BBU takes
the signal information and processes it, so it can be forwarded to the core network.
Data returns to the user via the reverse process. The amount of area that a RAN
node can cover varies depending on the capabilities of the antennas, RAN
hardware, and software at the node. In mobile networks, 60 to 65 percent of the
total cost of ownership of a network is in the RAN.

There are several different types of RANs:

1. D-RAN (Distributed RAN) –

This is the traditional RAN setup where a remote radio unit (RRU) and
baseband unit (BBU) are co-located at every cell site. The RRU filters and
amplifies the RF (radio frequency) signal, deciding the coverage of the system; it
also converts the RF signal to digital data for processing.

The CPRI (Common Public Radio Interface) is the protocol for frontal
communications between the towers and base stations. Each cell site has a BBU,
which manages the entire base station, operating/maintenance, and signalling
processing. It decides the capacity of the system. Backhaul is the interface that is
formed between the BBU pool and the core node (network).
 Unit-III

2. C-RAN (Cloud or Centralized RAN) –

With C-RAN, the BBU moves to a centralized location and the cell site has
only the antenna and the RRU. The BBU pool is a pool of BBUs in a centralized
location. Fronthaul is an interface that is formed between the RRU and BBU pool,
and backhaul serves as an interface between the BBU pool and the core node.

The primary benefit of C-RAN is that it reduces deployment and

maintenance cost per cell site because BBUs are centralized. Additionally, it
improves spectral efficiency and reduces interference as BBU pools can share
resources dynamically among the multiple RRUs.

3. vRAN (Virtualized RAN) –

vRAN is a type of C-RAN with its networking functions separated from the
hardware that it runs on. In this case, the BBU is what is separated through
virtualization.

The control planes--which control how data is forwarded--and the data planes-
-which actually forward data--are also separated.

This type of RAN is often found in 5G technology architectures because the

networks need virtualization to support the uses cases and performance
requirements of 5G.

Network functions virtualization (NFV) is the practice of turning hardware-based

functions into software. In an NFV architecture, the hardware is typically COTS
(commercial-off-the-shelf) hardware.
 Unit-III

Virtualizing the RAN makes it more agile, flexible, cost-effective, and scalable
than a hardware-based RAN.

A vRAN can adapt to changes in the network faster, including intelligent

load balancing and allocating resources on demand; it also allows change without
having to replace expensive hardware throughout the entire infrastructure, only
needing to update software.

Upgrading the RAN software can improve the network's connectivity,

efficiency, or security, among other functions. With a vRAN infrastructure,
network operators can keep up with security better than network operators still
using a non-virtualized RAN because bugs and other security issues can be fixed
by updating software instead of having to replace hardware on a large scale.

A secure network attracts more customers because the more trust the customer
base has in a product like a network, the more likely they are to use it. This type
of RAN, however, puts a strain on servers, as it requires massive amounts of
compute power. This is where edge computing comes into play.

vRAN is a type of C-RAN with networking functions separated from the

hardware that it runs on.
 Unit-III

4. O-RAN (Open RAN) –

Operators today want a more diverse ecosystem of vendors and are redefining
their RAN requirements. O-RAN is a term used for industry-wide standards for
RAN interfaces that support interoperating between vendors' equipment and offer
network flexibility. (Think of O-RAN in the same sense as the open
architectures SOSA/MOSA are introducing into their respective fields.)

The main purpose of O-RAN is to have an interoperability standard for RAN

elements including non-proprietary white box hardware and software from
different vendors.O-RAN is divided into three main building blocks: an O-RU,
an O-DU, and an O-CU.

O-RAN standards are being developed using vRAN principles and

technologies to help improve network malleability, enhance security, and reduce
costs.

Network operators that opt for O-RAN can avoid being stuck with one
vendor's proprietary hardware and software. This leaves more room for
innovation and competition, lower equipment costs, and improved network
performance, as more vendors can provide the building blocks and add new
services.

The O-RAN Alliance allows customers to mix and match components from
different vendors without being locked into one; it releases open software for the
RAN, supporting its members in the integration and testing of their
implementations.

O-RAN has three main building blocks: an O-RU, an O-DU, and an O-CU
 Unit-III

Q2. Discuss radio access for V2X Communication system in detail.

Vehicular communications (VC) is envisioned to improve road safety,
increase efficiency in traffic flow, reduce environmental impacts, and provide
additional information/services to travelers on the road. In the not too distant
future, vehicles will be equipped with necessary computing, communication, and
sensing capabilities and user interfaces to enable automated driving.

• V2V: Using V2V communication, a vehicle can detect the position and
movement of other vehicles for short distances. The vehicles communicate
with each other to support applications such as cooperative driver
assistance, slow vehicle warning, and so on.
• V2I: V2I enables vehicles to communicate with fixed infrastructure along
the side of the road in order to provide user communication and
information services such as Internet access, mobile advertising, and so on.
As technology evolves, so do the services that run on top of those
technologies. Similarly, vehicular communication is evolving from V2V/V2I
to V2X to keep up with the demands of the automotive industry and to take
 Unit-III

advantage of LTE/5G developments. V2X includes C-ITS (Cooperative

Intelligent Transport Systems) which is a critical component of the connected
car and automated driving of the future. V2X is comprised of four forms,
namely V2V, V2I, V2N (Vehicle-to-Network), and V2P (Vehicle-to-
Pedestrian) as shown in Figure.
V2V and V2P communications are primarily based on broadcast
capability between vehicles and vehicles and road users. These two forms
exchange information such as location, velocity, and direction to avoid
accidents and mishaps. V2I and V2N on the other hand also involve
infrastructure/network sending messages to the vehicles. V2I communication
is between vehicles and roadside units (RSUs) and between vehicles and
nearby traffic control devices. V2N transmission is between vehicles and
application servers through cellular networks such as LTE.
 Unit-III

Q3. Explain Network Slicing in 5G. Discuss its advantages and

disadvantages.
The 5th generation of networks comes with the unique capability of
network slicing which was not possessed by any of the earlier generations. It is a
capability that allows service providers to deploy specific services to support the
requirements of different customers and market segments. Network slicing
utilises network virtualisation for dividing the single network infrastructure into
multiple virtual connections. These virtual connections can then be provided to
enterprises with the benefits of customisations while ensuring compliance with
service legal agreements (SLAs).

It can be defined as independent end-to-end logical network which runs on

shared physical infrastructure which provides negotiated service quality. The
technology which enables network slicing is transparent to its business customers.

Network slice types are defined based on functional or behavioural

perspective. As a result, mobile network operators can deploy single network
slice type which fulfils need of multiple verticals or they can deploy multiple
different network slice types which are packaged as single product to meet
different business customers.
 Unit-III

Types of network slicing –

a) Vertical slicing: This type is industry focused and designed to serve

verticals services. shown in the following fig. 1 The applications cover
public safety, IoT, IPTV etc.

b) Horizontal slicing: This type is user, device and app-focused to serve a

sea of use cases. shown in following fig. 2 The applications cover
downloads, uploads as well as BE, delay sensitive, capacity sensitive,
symmetric traffic types etc.

• Static slicing: These are fixed slices for perpetual use e.g. M2M and IoT.

• Dynamic slicing: It is an evolved approach to deliver slices in real time.

Functions of 5G network slicing –

▪ 4G networks do not enable range of services which are needed in the future.
The flexibility and fast speed of 5G networks fulfil these requirements with
the help of network slicing.
▪ 5G network slicing enables service providers or operators to build virtual
end to end networks to meet vast application requirements viz. mobile
broadband (for entertainment), M2M/Massive IoT (for retail shipping
manufacturing), low latency critical IoT (for automotive medical) etc.
▪ It facilitates network optimization for different use cases. It helps in
reducing operators CAPEX/OPEX.
 Unit-III

▪ It facilitates automation and programmability.

▪ It isolates control plane and data plane and hence shared resources can be
effectively utilized.

Advantages of Network Slicing –

1. It uses NFV (Network functions virtualization) and SDN (Software
Defined Networking) in order to divide physical network into multiple
virtual networks to cater various customer requirements.
2. Single network can be used to offer various service based and specific
use case-based customer requirements.
3. Operators can allocate appropriate number of resources as per network
slice. Hence it helps in effective utilization of resources.
4. It helps network operators in reducing expenses (OPEX) and capital
expenditure (CAPEX).
5. It offers improvement in operational efficiency and time to market for
delivery of the 5G network services.
6. It overcomes all the drawbacks of "DiffServ" which is most popular
QoS solution. DiffServ cannot discriminate and differentiate same
traffic type such as VoIP originating from different tenants. Moreover
"DiffServ" does not have capability to isolate different traffic types.
Network slicing overcomes these drawbacks of "DiffServ".
Disadvantages of Network Slicing –
1. It is usually applied in the core network part of the 5G network. It can
also be implemented in RAN part with the help of resource pooling.
RAN (Radio Access Network) needs to be redesigned to leverage all
the benefits of the network slicing.
2. Interoperability should be tested in order to ensure network slicing
works as expected in the 5G network.
3. Common consensus among industry experts is needed to make it deliver
best results, which will take some time.
4. Though it offers more efficient use of shared radio resources, it requires
more sophisticated techniques in order to ensure isolation of these radio
resources.
 Unit-III

Q4. Explain Radio access for Massive machine type communication

(MMTC)
Massive machine type communication (mMTC) also known as massive
machine communication (MMC) or massive Machine to Machine
communication is a type of communication between machines over wired or
wireless networks where data generation, information exchange and actuation
takes place with minimal or no intervention from humans.
It is a sub-classification of machine type communication (MTC). mMTC
deals particularly with wireless connectivity and networking amongst massive
numbers (billions) of machines and is considered a key progression from the
Internet of Things IoT to the Internet of Everything.
Wireless communication with sensor devices and actuators represents
machine-type communication. Machine-type communication is different from
human-type communication, as the transmitters and receivers are machines or
devices in MTC communication. Various radio access technologies support
machine-type communication; the most promising is the latest 5G technology.
MTC is a broad area, and under 5G wireless communication technology, it
can be categorized as:
1. Massive machine-type communication (mMTC)
2. Ultra-reliable and low-latency machine-type communication
(UMTC)
UMTC is very reliable and offers low latency. UMTC is equipped with
provisions to control objects, devices, and processes in real-time. Massive
machine-type communication (mMTC) is more focused on providing intermittent
data transmissions, which delay tolerant services among a massive number of
devices.
 Unit-III

Connected Vehicles –

Wireless connectivity enables new functionalities and services in the

automotive industry. Automotive applications optimize both machine and human
communication. The mMTC use case in automobiles enables the exchange of
data between machines inside the vehicle or with servers or user devices. mMTC
use cases in the automotive industry include traffic efficiency, road safety, remote
diagnostics, and control.
Smart Grids –

The smart grid is a complex cyber-physical system where energy

production is decentralized. There is real-time control and coordination to match
the energy supply with demand. The mMTC service provided by 5G wireless
technology promotes the establishment of a reliable smart grid. This smart grid,
which is a use case of mMTC, is also capable of sending commands and polls.
Factory Automation –

By enabling wireless connectivity between various movable machines

present in an integrated control system, it is possible to reduce downtime, shut
downs, and monetary losses during manufacturing. The application of 5G mMTC
over a wired connection helps engineers lower installation costs and eliminate the
clutter and weight issues from cables. The most common application of factory
automation is the real-time control of sensors and actuators in a closed loop.
Massive machine-type communication (mMTC) services enabled by 5G
technology are integral parts of use cases such as factory automation, autonomous
vehicle control, smart buildings, smart city systems, smart grids, smart logistics,
and geographically spread devices.
 Unit-III

Q5. Explain the beamforming techniques in 5G.

Beamforming and MIMO are two multi-antenna techniques that increase
performance gains in wireless communications systems.

Beamforming is a signal processing technique that directs radio energy

through the radio channel toward a specific receiver. Beamforming results in
spatial selectivity using adaptive or fixed receive/transmit beam patterns. The
beam patterns come from the different relative phase shifts observed between the
antennas at different points in space. For example, a mobile phone at a certain
point, relative to two antennas transmitting the same information at different
relative phase offsets, will "see" degrees of constructive or destructive combining
of the two waveforms from each of the two antennas at different points. When
transmitting, a beamformer controls the relative phase of the signals from each
transmitter antenna to create a pattern of constructive and destructive interference
in the wavefront at the receiver.
 Unit-III

Full Dimension Multiple Input Multiple Output (FD-MIMO) uses

numerous transmit antennas at the cell site and several receive antennas at the
User Equipment (UE). N-dimensional H-plane beamforming separates users in
the horizontal plane. V-plane beamforming can separate users at the same azimuth
angle (e.g., 20 degrees in the horizontal plane) but at different elevations. At a
given angle in the horizontal plane, the base station can separate a nearby user
and a far-away user with different azimuth and elevation angles.
Massive MIMO is an advanced antenna system that offers a high degree of
freedom due to many radio frequency chains. As a result, Massive MIMO
increases Signal-to-Interference Plus Noise Ratio (SINR) and throughput when
using beamforming.
Types of Beamforming –

Three main implementation approaches for beamforming are digital

beamforming, analog beamforming, and hybrid analog and digital beamforming.
These approaches differ in the way antenna weights are modified. Antenna
weights generally include amplitude and phase adjustments, with phase
adjustments being more popular. Digital beamforming involves the adjustment of
antenna weights in the digital baseband signal. Beamforming in Release 8 LTE
utilizes phase adjustments of digital modulation symbols using codebooks.
Analog beamforming modifies antenna weights for the analog signals that could
be at baseband or radio frequency. Finally, hybrid beamforming, as the name
implies, involves adjusting antenna weights in both analog and digital signals,
likely making it the primary approach for 5G cellular networks.
 Unit-III

Analog beamforming is less expensive, but it is less flexible. In contrast,

pure digital beamforming is highly flexible but expensive regarding components,
processing, and costs. Thus, hybrid beamforming is the preferred choice for
massive MIMO-based beamforming in 5G. Analog beamforming creates wider
beams in a cell. In contrast, digital beamforming provides the flexibility of
supporting spatial multiplexing (i.e., single-user MIMO) and multi-user MIMO.
Additionally, the flexibility of digital beamforming creates narrower beams (e.g.,
only a couple of degrees of beamwidth), simplifying the overall implementation
of beamforming using massive MIMO.

Benefits of beamforming –

▪ Beamforming effectively uses the science of electromagnetic interference

to enhance the precision of 5G connections, working in tandem with
MIMO to improve throughput and connection density of 5G network cells.

▪ The resultant highly directional transmissions are particularly beneficial

with mmWave transmissions, which suffer heavily from path loss and do
not propagate well through obstacles such as walls. The improved Signal-
to-Noise Ratios (SNR), enabled by beamforming, increase signal range for
both outdoors and - importantly - indoor coverage.

▪ Beamforming’s ability to cancel out or “null” interference is also a

significant benefit in crowded, urban environments with high densities of
UEs, where multiple signal beams can potentially interfere with each other.

▪ Overall, by reducing internal and external interference and

reducing SNR, beamforming supports higher-order signal modulation
schemes, such as 64QAM and 16QAM - all of which contribute to a
substantial improvement in network cell capacity.
 Unit-III

Q6. Draw and explain the NOMA system model in detail.

Today’s LTE and 4G (LTE-Advanced) technologies are based on an OMA
scheme, that is, OFDM. It is widely known that OFDM suffers from high PAPR,
can introduce ICI due to loss in subcarrier orthogonality, and has some other
impairments as well. Thus, to improve spectral efficiency, a nonorthogonal
scheme, namely NOMA (Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access) has been considered
for 5G. NOMA brings an additional attribute to the picture, i.e. power which has
not been considered to differentiate users by any currently deployed multiple
access scheme.
In NOMA, multiple users can transmit at the same time using the same
code and frequency but with different power levels. In this access method,
multiple users are multiplexed in the power domain on the transmitting end and
on the receiving side, SIC (Successive Interference Cancellation) can be used for
multi-user signal separation. This power sharing reduces the amount of power
allocated to each user, therefore, users with high channel gains are assigned less
power as compared to users with lower channel gains. NOMA superposes
multiple users in the power domain (forming a superposition coding) while
enabling user separation at the receiving end through SIC. NOMA is suitable for
both eMBB and mMTC (Massive Machine-Type Communications) types of
services, but perhaps not for URLLC due to the inherent delay associated with
SIC.

Basic Concept of NOMA:

Figure below illustrates downlink NOMA for the case of one BS (base
station) and two UE (user equipment). In downlink NOMA, the transmit signal
from the BS and the received signal at both UE receivers is composed of a
superposition of the transmit signals of both UEs. Thus, multi-user signal
separation needs to be implemented at the UE side so that each UE can retrieve
its signal and decode its own data. This can be achieved by non-linear receivers
such as maximum likelihood detection or SIC (Successive Interference
Cancellation).
 Unit-III

For the case of SIC, the optimal order for decoding is in the order of the
decreasing channel gain normalized by noise and ICI power. Based on this order,
we can actually assume that any user can correctly decode the signals of other
users whose decoding order comes before the corresponding user. In a two-UE
case, assuming that, UE-2 does not perform interference cancellation since it
comes first in the decoding order. UE-1 first decode UE-2 signal, and subtracts
its component from total received signal, and thus it gets its own signal
component and decodes it, without interference from UE-2 signal. NOMA uses
the power domain to separate signals from each other. NOMA gives a new
dimension in which signals can be separated and given access to a base station.
This technique that has not been used within 2G, 3G or 4G before.
 Unit-III

Q7. Compare the OMA and NOMA technology with relevant points.

In OFDMA, different UE signals are transmitter at different frequency

resources, but in case of NOMA, different UE signals are transmitted at same
frequency but at different power levels depending upon the position of UE in the
cell. The performance gain of NOMA compared to that of OFDMA increases
when the difference in channel gain the path loss between UEs is large. According
to this simple two-UE case, NOMA provides a higher sum rate than OFDMA. In
fact, the cell-center UE gains in terms of rate since this UE is bandwidth-limited
and thus benefits more from being able to use double bandwidth, even if this
comes at the price of much lower transmit power. Meanwhile, the cell-edge UE
also gains in terms of rate since it is power limited; its transmit power is only
slightly reduced under NOMA but its transmit bandwidth can be doubled.