AI/ML Data-driven Control Loop for Managing O-RAN SDR-based RANs

Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) introduced a common control and management overlay, allowing mobile network operators to embed networking intelligence using different types of third-party applications: xApps for real-time control loops, and rApps for Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML)-based classification and decision-making. 

However, the development of reference implementations for rApps lags behind the progress in other O-RAN-related standardization efforts. 

CCI researchers showcased a proof-of-concept rApp capable of generating policies to steer the behavior of xApps, and detailed how they extended a RAN slicing xApp to react to such policies, creating the first experimental ML-based RAN slicing platform based on O-RAN.