An Approach to Designing Intelligent RAN Controller Services

The concept of Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) drives the RAN transition toward intellectualization, virtualization, and interoperability. The core of O-RAN is the separation of near real time intelligent control from the non-real time one, and the open interfaces between virtualized components. While some O-RAN trails are being deployed, there are some open issues related to the design of intelligent solutions and extension of open interfaces. The paper presents an approach to software design of virtualized O-RAN functionality following the principles of Service Based Architecture. The RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) functions are designed as microservices which enable application management and Machine Learning (ML) model management. To illustrate the approach feasibility, the ML model lifecycle is modelled from ML model designer and O-RAN point of views. Models are formally described and verified.