A Slice-Based O-RAN Physical Layer Framework for RAN Slicing Implementation

In this study, we propose a slice-based RAN slicing framework to improve resource management in the physical layer (PHY) by leveraging O-RAN split 7.2x architecture. Although network slicing is relatively easy to implement on the core network side, the dynamic management of physical resources according to slices is quite complicated on the RAN side. In the framework, high PHY is considered as a cloud-based function and deployed separately for each slice, such as ultra-reliable and low-latency communications (URLLC)-high PHY, machine type communication (mMTC)-high PHY, enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB)-high PHY. Each slice has its own slice-based high PHY module and each slice-based high PHY module has its own physical resource block. Individual slice-based physical resource usage approach provides better performance in terms of allocating more users when compared to traditional shared resource usage approach.