Link Failure Recovery in SDN-Enabled Reconfigurable 6G Crosshaul Architecture

While 5G infrastructure is being rapidly rolled out around the world, it is clear that a key strategy to meet the required high speed, ubiquitous connection is via small cell deployment and cell densification. This results in increased complexity in orchestrating and managing the Radio Access Network (RAN). To this end, we proposed a novel Software Defined Networking (SDN)-enabled reconfigurable crosshaul architecture for supporting heterogeneous hauling technologies and enhancing RAN flexibility and robustness. This is achieved by crosshaul control and data plane separation and a novel control plane. In particular, the link failure recovery procedure in the proposed architecture is evaluated to assess the robustness of the network. Simulation results illustrated that the fast recovery time will not interrupt the mobile users' connectivity with RAN. However, mobile users' data plane shows impacts on different RAN protocol layers due to the failure.