5G expansion
5G-Industry Campus Europe expanded with Cloud RAN
Source:
Fraunhofer IPT | Translated by AI
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The Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT, RWTH Aachen University and Ericsson GmbH have successfully expanded the 5G-Industry Campus Europe in Aachen with a Cloud RAN infrastructure.
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The RAN is an important component of mobile networks and allows wireless communication between mobile devices and the mobile service provider’s core network. So far, operating a private 5G network requires separate servers for the RAN’s data processing. Cloud RAN now offers an alternative through the use of standard servers, on which a virtualized RAN application and industrial applications can be operated jointly, as the project partners explain.
Resource-saving 5G Infrastructure
Therefore, Cloud RAN technology enables the operation of the entire RAN for the 5G system on existing local cloud systems, without the need to provide separate servers for RAN operation. For this purpose, the RAN software is decoupled from the hardware, the statement continues. The virtualization of the RAN then allows the use of manufacturer-independent hardware and at the same time supports the operation of industrial applications – for example, for sensor data processing, speech recognition, image processing, or for controlling robots on the same system. The parallel and demand-based operation of the applications reduces the resource requirements and makes it easier for companies to set up a 5G infrastructure individually tailored to their specific needs.
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The Cloud-RAN technology offers numerous advantages. It allows the resources of a network infrastructure to be controlled more efficiently, thereby saving costs and energy. This technology makes it possible to deploy new or additional services quickly and flexibly in response to changing requirements, allowing for a more efficient use of infrastructure.
The implementation of Cloud RAN technology at the 5G Industry Campus Europe serves as a research platform for future 5G applications for industry. The flexibility and scalability of the Cloud RAN testbed provides the ability to evaluate and implement individual networks according to one’s own requirements. The research project “CLOUD56”, funded by the Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport (BMDV), now aims to make Cloud RAN technology ready for industrial use. To this end, the partners research and validate the use of Cloud RAN at the 5G Industry Campus Europe, using four specific industrial application scenarios. This involves the development of a sensor-to-cloud pipeline for process monitoring in milling, the virtualization of control and object recognition for mobile robotics in freely linked assembly, as well as cloud-based, robot-supported prefabrication in construction production. Furthermore, virtualized assistance functions for medical applications in the operating room and in the clinic are being investigated in the area of healthcare.
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