On the Automation of RAN Slicing Provisioning and Cell Planning in NG-RAN

Network slicing is a fundamental feature of 5G systems that facilitates the provision of particular system behaviours adapted to specific service/application domains on top of a common network infrastructure. While significant progress has already been achieved at specification level by 3GPP with regard to the functional support of network slicing, management solutions for the exploitation of these capabilities in the NG-RAN are still at a very incipient stage. In this context, this paper firstly presents a functional framework for the management of network slicing for a NG-RAN infrastructure, identifying the necessary information models and interfaces to support the dynamic provisioning of RAN slices. On this basis, the feasibility to automate the provisioning of RAN slices is discussed. Furthermore, a self-planning solution is presented to illustrate how a traditional network management process such as planning is expected to evolve to cope with the new challenges associated with RAN slicing management.