Toward Programmability of Radio Resource Control Based on O-RAN

Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) is a concept that aims at embedding intelligence at the network edge and at disaggregating of network functionality from the hardware. The paper studies how the O-RAN concept can be used for optimization of radio resource management. The research focuses on adaptive radio resource allocation based on predictions of device activity. For narrowband devices which send sporadically small volumes of data, a feature is defined which enables a device with no activity for a short time to suspend its session and to resume it moving in active state. Dynamic configuration of the inactivity timer based on prediction of device activity may further optimize radio resource allocation. The paper studies an O-RAN use case for dynamic radio resource control and presents the results of emulation of the RESTful interface defined between the O-RAN non-real-time and near real-time functions.