The 2nd Workshop on Next-generation Open and Programmable
Radio Access Networks (NG-OPERA)
Monday, May 20, 2024 ● 08:30 – 18:00 ● Room: Regency A
CALL FOR PAPERS COMMITTEE SUBMISSIONS PROGRAM
As cellular networks progress towards 5G-Advanced and 6G, the Radio Access Network (RAN) domain is undergoing a rapid transformation. Initiatives such as the O-RAN Alliance that promote the Open RAN movement are jointly shaping the future of access networks across industry and academia, while open-source RAN software solutions such as the OpenAirInterface and srsRAN projects, as well as open-source RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) implementations such as FlexRIC and OSC-RIC, have made it possible to involve a much larger set of stakeholders than was previously possible. Buoyed by the key tenets of softwarization, disaggregation, and programmability, the RAN is evolving from a monolithic black-box entity to a more disaggregated, open, and programmable ecosystem. This evolution has also brought forth the possibility of rich third-party support for RAN assurance and control, driven by advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) through standard protocols. At the same time, the rapid adoption of AI should be closely coupled with guard-rails that ensure trustworthiness, resilience and explainability of such models in production systems. Therefore, while the RAN is poised to usher in a new era of openness and innovation, much work remains to be done within the domains of architectures, interfaces, algorithms, and standardization.
To that end, this workshop aims to provide a forum for researchers and professionals across academia, government, and industries, to exchange ideas, present new results, and provide future visions concerning next-generation open and programmable RANs.
Steering Committee:
Jacobus (Kobus) Van der Merwe (University of Utah, Utah, USA)
Linda Xie (University of North Carolina at Charlotte, North Carolina, USA)
General Co-Chairs:
Nakjung Choi (Nokia Bell Labs, New Jersey, USA)
Tao Han (New Jersey Institute of Technology, New Jersey, USA)
Technical Program Co-Chairs:
Mikel Irazabal (OpenAirInterface Software Alliance, Biot, France)
Ahan Kak (Nokia Bell Labs, New Jersey, USA)
Qiang Liu (University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Nebraska, USA)
Simona Marinova (Bell Canada, Toronto, Canada)
Keynote and Panel Chair:
Ravikumar Balakrishnan (Intel Labs, Oregon, USA)
Demo Chair:
Akshay Jain (Nokia Bell Labs, Espoo, Finland)
Publicity Chair:
Moinul Hossain (George Mason University, Virgina, USA)
08:30–08:35
Opening Session
Nakjung Choi and Tao Han
08:35–09:30
Keynote Session 1
Richard MacKenzie (BT Networks, UK)
09:30–10:00
Technical Session 1: Large-scale Open RAN Testbeds
An Open, Programmable, Multi-vendor 5G O-RAN Testbed with NVIDIA ARC and OpenAirInterface
Davide Villa and Imran Khan (Northeastern University, USA); Florian Kaltenberger (Eurecom, France); Nicholas Hedberg (NVIDIA, USA); Rúben Soares da Silva (Allbesmart, Portugal); Anupa Kelkar and Chris Dick (NVIDIA, USA); Stefano Basagni, Josep M Jornet, Tommaso Melodia, Michele Polese. and Dimitrios Koutsonikolas (Northeastern University, USA)
ARA-O-RAN: End-to-End Programmable O-RAN Living Lab for Agriculture and Rural Communities
Tianyi Zhang, Joshua Ofori Boateng and Taimoor UI Islam (Iowa State University, USA); Arsalan Ahmad (Iowa State University, USA & National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Pakistan); Hongwei Zhang and Daji Qiao (Iowa State University, USA)
10:00–10:30
Coffee Break
10:30–11:15
Technical Session 2: Open RAN Performance Optimization and Orchestration
Toward B5G/6G Connected Autonomous Vehicles: O-RAN-Driven Millimeter-Wave Beam Management and Handover Management
Kengo Suzuki and Jin Nakazato (The University of Tokyo, Japan); Yuki Sasaki and Kazuki Maruta (Tokyo University of Science, Japan); Manabu Tsukada and Hiroshi Esaki (The University of Tokyo, Japan)
Flexible Association and Placement for Open-RAN
Hiba Hojeij (CentraleSupélec Université, France); Guilherme Iecker Ricardo (University of Toulouse, France); Mahdi Sharara (Orange Labs, France); Sahar Hoteit (University Paris-SACLAY & CentraleSupélec, France); Véronique Vèque (Université Paris-Saclay, France); Stefano Secci (Cnam, France)
5G RAN and Core Orchestration with ML-Driven QoS Profiling
Carlos Valente (University of Aveiro, Portugal); Pedro Valente (Instituto de Telecomunicações, Portugal); Pedro Rito (Instituto de Telecomunicações, Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal); Duarte Raposo (Instituto de Telecomunicações, Portugal); Miguel Luis (Instituto Superior Técnico & Instituto de Telecomunicacoes, Portugal); Susana Sargento (Instituto de Telecomunicações, Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal)
11:15–12:30
Panel Discussion: Role of AI in 6G Open and Programmable RAN
Panelists: Arda Akman (Juniper Networks, USA); Sergey Andreev (Tampere University, Finland); Alan Gatherer (Cirrus360, USA); Mazin Gilbert (Google, USA); Yalin Sagduyu (Virginia Tech National Security Institute, USA)
Moderator: Ravikumar Balakrishnan (Intel Labs, Oregon, USA)
12:30–14:00
Lunch Break
14:00–15:00
Keynote Session 2: Extreme Reconfigurability for 6G through Programmable Open Radio Access Networks
Kaushik Chowdhury (Northeastern University, USA)
15:00–15:30
Technical Session 3: Systems-level Solutions for Open RANs
IntegRAN: Towards Vertical and Horizontal Integration for Programmable RAN Performance Optimization
Ahan Kak, Van Quan Pham, Huu Trung Thieu, Ramanujan K Sheshadri, and Nakjung Choi (Nokia Bell Labs, USA)
Architecture and Benchmark of an Experimental CRAN Platform over CPRI
Tayyebeh Asgari Gashteroodkhani, Iresha Amarasekara, Aveek Dutta, and Dola Saha (University at Albany, SUNY, USA)
15:30–16:00
Coffee Break
16:00–17:00
Technical Session 4: Machine Learning for Open RANs
An In-Depth Analysis of Advanced Time Series Forecasting Models for the Open RAN
Pablo Fernández Pérez, Claudio Fiandrino, Marco Fiore and Joerg Widmer (IMDEA Networks Institute, Spain)
Reinforcement Learning for Inter-Operator Sharing in Open-RAN
Mahdi Sharara (Orange Labs, France); Sahar Hoteit (University Paris-SACLAY & CentraleSupélec, France); Véronique Vèque (Université Paris-Saclay, France)
Learn to Augment Network Simulators Towards Digital Network Twins
Yuru Zhan, Ming Zhao, and Qiang Liu (University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA); Nakjung Choi (Nokia Bell Labs, USA)
QoS-DRAMA: Quality of Service aware DRL-based Adaptive Mid-level resource Allocation scheme
Moustafa Roshdi and Ethan Swistak (Fraunhofer IIS, Germany); Reinhard German (University of Erlangen, Germany); Mehdi Harounabadi (Fraunhofer IIS, Germany)
17:00–17:45
Technical Session 5: Security for Open RANs, Posters, and Demos
Evaluation of Control/User-Plane Denial-of-Service (DoS) Attack on O-RAN Fronthaul Interface
Ferlinda Feliana and Ting-Wei Hung (National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan); Binbin Chen (Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore); Ray-Guang Cheng (National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan)
Poster: O-RAN for Energy-Efficient Serving Cluster Formulation in User-Centric Cell-Free MMIMO
Marcin Dominik Hoffmann (Poznań University of Technology & Rimedo Labs, Poland); Pawel Kryszkiewicz (Poznan University of Technology, Poland)
Demo: Closed-Loop Telerobotics over Software-Defined Radio based 5G Wireless Testbed
Raju Garuda, Narges Golmohammadi, Mohammad Helal Uddin and Sabur Baidya (University of Louisville, USA)
Demo: AI-Driven rApps for Reducing Radio Access Network Interference in Real-World 5G Deployment
Nguyen Bao Long Tran, Mao Van Ngo, Yong Hao Pua, Thanh Long Le, Binbin Chen and Tony Q. S. Quek (Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore)
17:45–18:00
Closing Session and Awards
Nakjung Choi and Tao Han
