BeGREEN: Beyond 5G Artificial Intelligence Assisted Energy Efficient Open Radio Access Network

BeGREEN将从整体上提出不断发展的无线电网络，不仅要适应不断增长的流量和服务，还要考虑功耗。确定应包括功耗的指标是一个关键特征，将作为项目的第一阶段进行研究。这不仅包括能源成本，还包括社会因素。BeGREEN将根据以下支柱评估可以降低功耗的不同机制：在架构层面，规划和评估大规模MIMO包括RAN设计，以实现灵活和节能的连接，考虑频谱利用率，干扰缓解和架构/处理复杂性。在硬件和基础设施层面，无线电单元控制方案将用于功率放大器能量优化。此外，将采用用于硬件加速的卸载引擎，以在执行无线电接入功能和网络功能虚拟化时实现能源效率。在链路级，集成感测技术用于提供对无线电信道的影响的更好的估计，该无线电信道朝向针对与所得到的计算相关联的增加的功耗的频谱效率的改进。在系统层面，该项目致力于开发和评估基于人工智能的程序，以适应软件化网络功能的能源消耗，旨在根据网络的使用模式最大限度地减少整体能源消耗。BeGREEN提出了一个“智能平面”，作为一个附加的平面沿着与用户平面和数据平面，它允许数据，模型和推理之间的无缝交换网络功能。BeGREEN将使用O-RAN作为基线架构，因为它可以提供新的/合适的接口和协议，用于将网络中的数据移动到适当的位置，以进行性能和效率评估。此外，O-RAN固有的分解、虚拟化以及网络和服务管理功能提供了实现BeGREEN追求的许多基础设施变化和能源优化技术的机制。BeGREEN将使用人工智能/机器学习技术提供解决方案，以减少所需的计算，并识别与用户群行为相关的系统级数据中的模式，并从网络性能和能源消耗方面学习对这种行为的最适当响应。在该方案中，将考虑AI/ML操作在网络内的位置对方法性能的影响、功耗以及在不同操作之间共享资源的能力。BeGREEN技术将在三个演示中展示。在国际水文计划的前提下，联合通信和传感技术实现有效的资源分配和优化功耗。该项目的目标是在演示中使用可重新配置的智能表面进行节能。此外，两个主要的项目演示将在Adastral公园的BT场所进行。首先，使用ORAN rApps和xApps实现的“智能飞机”将在网络模拟器上演示。然后，该项目最终集成演示器使用Adastral试验台设施展示BeGREEN技术创新。

BeGREEN will take a holistic view to propose evolving radio networks that not only accommodate increasing traffic and services but also consider power consumption as a factor. Determining the metrics by which power consumption should be included is a key feature which will be studied as first stage of the project. This will include not only the cost of the energy but also societal factors. BeGREEN will evaluate different mechanisms by which power consumption could be reduced based on the following pillars: At the architecture level, planning and evaluation of a massive MIMO included RAN design to achieve flexible and energy efficient connectivity considering spectrum utilisation, interference mitigation and architecture/processing complexity. At the hardware and infrastructure level, radio-unit controlling schemes will be used in power amplifiers energy optimisation. Also, an offloading engine for hardware acceleration will be employed to achieve energy efficiency when performing radio access functions and network function virtualisation. At the link level, the integrated sensing techniques are used to provide a better estimate of the impact of the radio channel toward improvements in spectral efficiency against the increased power consumption associated with the resulting calculations. At the system level, the project pursues the development and evaluation of AI-based procedures to adapt the energy consumption of softwarised network functions, aiming to minimize the overall consumed energy according to the utilisation patterns of network. BeGREEN proposes an “Intelligent Plane”, as an additional plane along with user plane and data plane, that allows the data, model and inference to be seamlessly exchanged between network functions. BeGREEN will use O-RAN as the baseline architecture, due to new/suitable interfaces and protocols it can provide, to be used for the movement of data around the network to the appropriate location for performance and efficiency assessments. In addition, the disaggregation, virtualisation and network and service management capabilities inherent in O-RAN provide the mechanisms to realise many of the infrastructure changes and techniques for energy optimisation pursued in BeGREEN. BeGREEN will use AI/ML techniques to provide solutions for reducing the required calculations and to recognise patterns in the system level data associated with the behaviour of the user-base and to learn the most appropriate response to this behaviour in terms of both network performance and energy consumption. In this scheme, impact of the location of the AI/ML operations within the network on the performance of the approach, the consumption of power and the ability to share resources between different operations will be considered. BeGREEN technologies will be showcased in three demonstrations. At IHP premises, the joint communications and sensing techniques toward efficient resource allocation and optimised power consumption. The project targets using reconfigurable intelligent surfaces for energy saving scenarios in the demonstrations. Furthermore, two major project demonstrations will be performed at BT premises in Adastral park. First, the ‘Intelligent Plane’ implemented using ORAN rApps and xApps will be demonstrated on a network emulator. Then, the project final integrated demonstrator using the Adastral testbed facilities to showcase BeGREEN technology innovations.