Implementation of Hardware and Software Platforms

This chapter addresses implementation challenges and a complexity analysis of 5th generation (5G) hardware (HW) and software (SW) platforms. It focuses on analog and mixed signal HW, and addresses digital HW. The chapter explains the link between the HW and SW domains, and describes a set of functional requirements for SW platforms. The cognitive and dynamic HW/SW partitioning algorithm's task is to provide the best HW/SW partitioning of the 5G network functions for both device and network elements. The chapter provides an example of platform implementation targeting a virtual radio access network (vRAN) or cloud radio access network (CRAN) architecture. It evaluates the C‐RAN implementation using OpenAirInterface (OAI) [35], a SW‐based Long Term Evolution (LTE)/LTE‐A system implementation spanning the full 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) protocol stack with a third‐party EPC, and commercial off‐the‐shelf (COTS) user equipment (UE) and Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) B210 software‐defined radio (SDR).