NEC said this technology improves the productivity of applications, such as the remote control of robots and vehicles
Japanese vendor NEC said it has developed a RAN autonomous optimization technology that dynamically controls 5G radio access networks (RAN) according to the status of each user terminal.
The company said that this technology improves the productivity of applications, such as the remote control of robots and vehicles. NEC noted that it will incorporate the technology into RAN Intelligent Controllers (RIC) and conduct demonstration tests using this technology by March 2025.
“There is growing momentum to promote digital transformation by utilizing the latest technologies such as 5G, artificial intelligence (AI), and the internet of things (IoT) with the aim of resolving labor shortages and improving productivity. When using these technologies for remote control of robots and vehicles, two-way communication consisting of status monitoring and control instructions for each robot/vehicle must be completed within a certain period of time,” said NEC in a release.
“However, if the communication latency exceeds the requirement, the operation is repeatedly suspended for safety reasons, resulting in a decrease in the operation rate and productivity. The communication delays, such as retransmission delays due to poor radio quality and queuing delays due to congestion on the radio links, have been a barrier to the introduction of remote control systems,” it added.
NEC also highlighted that stable communications environments have been achieved by installing high-performance network equipment, providing sufficient frequency resources, increasing redundancy in coding and communication paths and pre-configuration of RAN parameters according to the application. “However, with these methods, it is difficult to widely support applications that are diversifying with the advancement of DX, and the time and cost required for implementation is also an issue,” the Japanese vendor added.
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The RAN autonomous optimization technology developed by NEC consists of AI that analyzes communication requirements and radio quality fluctuations on a per-user terminal basis, such as robots and vehicles and AI that dynamically controls RAN parameters on a per-user terminal basis based on the results of that analysis. This AI learns from past operational records of robots and vehicles, and optimally controls RAN parameters such as modulation and coding scheme, radio resource allocation and maximum allowable delay while predicting the probability of exceeding communication latency requirements, according to NEC.
“Whereas in a typical 5G network, RAN parameters are fixed and set for the entire network, this technology dynamically controls them on a per-user terminal basis to improve application productivity,” the company said.
Since it can be integrated with RICs that are compliant with O-RAN Alliance standard specifications, Nec added that this technology is easy to install or add to existing facilities.
NEC said it plans to incorporate the technology into RIC platforms compliant with the O-RAN Alliance standard specifications and conduct demonstration tests using this technology by March 2025. NEC also noted it will exhibit this technology at MWC Barcelona 2024.