1 Open RAN Deployment Using Advanced Radio Link Manager Framework to Support Mission Critical Services in 5G Sree Lekshmi S 1,* , Seshaiah Ponnekanti 1 1 Amrita Center for Wireless Networks & Applications (Amrita WNA), Amrita School of Engineering, Amritapuri Campus, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, India {sslekshmi, seshaiahp}@am.amrita.edu Abstract Next generation networks or 5G will be “network of networks” that can support ultra-reliable and low latency communication, high data rate, huge connectivity and high security. Network transformation stirring towards virtualized Radio Access Network (v-RAN) and intelligent resource management are foreseen as key solutions to realise such varied 5G requirements. Effective Radio Resource Management (RRM) is crucial for Mission Critical (MC) services to underpin communication between smartphone, massive machines and tiny sensor devices. The paper explores pioneering research related to architecture and intelligent RRM that helps Service Providers (SPs) to design reference framework of an advanced Radio Link Manager (RLM) enabled by Machine Learning (ML). One example optimization for commercial network/Long Term Evolution (LTE) and some preliminary results are analysed to understand the reference framework. The paper addresses the general reference architecture framework of advanced Radio Link Manager to support Mission Critical services in 5G. The paper also discusses about the ongoing standardisation activities and open source initiatives in 5G RAN. Keywords: 5G networks, machine learning, radio link manager, scheduler, mission critical services. Received on 02 February 2019, accepted on 10 March 2019, published on 15 March 2019 Copyright © 2019 Sree Lekshmi S et al., licensed to EAI. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unlimited use, distribution and reproduction in any medium so long as the original work is properly cited. doi: 10.4108/eai.15-3-2019.162140 1. Introduction The evolution of mobile technology generations provides greater capacity and data rates to the end users. The tremendous increase in mobile data usage place unparalleled demands on telecom industries in terms of efficiency, flexibility and scalability of the network. In future, 5G or next generation technology is expected to improve network performance and support various new services such as machine type and ultra-low latency communications. To address such services, most of the significant requirements in 5G will be related to enhancing the radio links. This enhancement leads to change in the entire Radio Access Network (RAN) infrastructure. Currently, the distributed RAN architecture consists of Remote Radio Heads (RRH) and Base band Units (BBUs) colocated at the cell sites and backhauled to the Core Network (CN). With 5G, Service Providers (SPs) are migrating towards Open –RAN (O-RAN) architecture with essential protocol split within RAN. The idea is to utilise the Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) principles to virtualise, split and shift some RAN functions to the cloud. This RAN evolution helps the network operator to provide higher data rate, higher reliability and reduce end- to-end latency. Ultra-reliable Low Latency Communication (uRLLC) is one of the diverse use cases in 5G which will cater latency sensitive or Mission Critical (MC) services such as telemedicine, autonomous cars and smart factory etc [1]. In future, the network will support both multicast and broadcast techniques referred to as Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Services (MBMS) based mission critical services to offer voice, video and streaming EAI Endorsed Transactions on Cloud Systems Research Article EAI Endorsed Transactions on Cloud Systems 12 2018 - 03 2019 | Volume 5 | Issue 14 | e6 * Corresponding author. Email: sslekshmi@am.amrita.edu