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Projecte llegit

Títol: Design and implementation of a private 5G Wireless RF planning software tool


Estudiants que han llegit aquest projecte:


Director/a: ROBERT SANXIS, FRANCESC JOSEP

Departament: EEL

Títol: Design and implementation of a private 5G Wireless RF planning software tool

Data inici oferta: 06-02-2022     Data finalització oferta: 06-10-2022



Estudis d'assignació del projecte:
    DG ENG AERO/SIS TEL
    DG ENG AERO/TELEMÀT
    DG ENG SISTE/TELEMÀT
Tipus: Individual
 
Lloc de realització: Fora UPC    
 
        Supervisor/a extern: Akshay Jain
        Institució/Empresa: Neutroon Technologies S.L
        Titulació del Director/a: Doctor per la UPC en Enginyeria de Telec
 
Paraules clau:
RF planning, 5G, private networks, simulation, UAV, optimization
 
Descripció del contingut i pla d'activitats:
This project consists of designing a 5G RF planning tool using Matlab following 3GPP specifications, that allows the deployment of a private 5G network optimally. The software will be designed to understand the behaviour of radio systems for optimizing the network SLA according to the established conditions. The tool will:

- Simulate radio links
- Represent the coverage area of a radio communication network
- Provide the optimal set-up (position, quantity and ideal characteristics of the radio units)


The scope of this project is to develop a bespoke RF planning tool for the company to study the viability of a deployment beforehand and assess the achievable performance of a network in an automated way. However, the possible integration of the tool as an add-on to the pre-sales pipeline of the company's portfolio is a possibility.

As far as the aerospace context of the project is concerned, the industrial 4.0 revolution impulsed by 5G brings a huge set of opportunities for the aerospace industry, in both civil and military sectors. In fact, currently there are already use cases in the industry where the connectivity required can only be achieved through Private wireless solutions. Incumbent European vendors like Nokia and Ericsson are offering Industrial-grade Private Wireless solutions for airports that are 5g-ready. In fact, in 2020 Groupe ADP (Aéroports de Paris), its subsidiary Hub One and Air France-KLM chose Ericsson to deploy a private mobile network covering three French airports: Paris-Charles de Gaulle (CDG), Paris-Orly (ORY) and Paris-Le Bourget (LBG). Moreover, to enable the use of UAV(Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) in mission critical environments, ultra-reliable, low latency and secure private cellular networks are required.

Thus, to design a software tool that facilitates the deployment of a private 5G network is linked directly to the aeronautical sector, as the study of its viability can promote the emergence of new use cases. Once the tool is designed, it will be used to do the RF planning of private 5G wireless networks on a few aeronautical premises, UAV networks, etc., for better performance.

The work will be structured in the following phases:

Understanding project requirements
1. To determine the key features of the tool, an initial study focusing on the real challenges from the end user point of view will be done. These will be helpful to understand the problem that will be solved.

Technical implementation
1. Implementation of the features. In this phase, work will be done to implement the
following features -- study the viability of the tool, read the 3GPP specifications, code the RF planning tool in MATLAB, and check performance of a given scenario from the tool in an ergodic sense using MonteCarlo simulations.

2. Optimization. In this phase, the focus will be to optimize the deployments based on customer KPI requirements, wherein optimization algorithms will be studied and
implemented in the tool.

3. User interface. Once all the features have been coded (scripts and functions) and tested, the next step will be to implement a MATLAB GUI. This will allow the final user to be able to manage the tool in a more efficient, interactive and straightforward way.

Testing
1. Test and compare. In this last phase, testing tasks will be done to validate the reliability of the tool by using it in a real scenario. The tool will be used to design a deployment (simulate coverage and design of the radio units set-up) of a location where the company has already deployed a private 5G network, to compare and analyse the results obtained from both cases (simulation and real deployment).


Aerospace application
1. Use cases study. In this phase, a study on the state of the art of use cases involving private 5G networks in aeronautics will be done.
 
Overview (resum en anglès):
Compared to wireless connectivity, Private Cellular provides a more reliable and secure solution for mission-critical applications. This, combined with the fifth generation of mobile communications characteristics, makes Private 5G a potential solution as it offers a highly reliable and low latency network that allows to develop and execute industrial applications that with LTE(Long Term Evolution) were not possible. That is why Private 5G is an emerging solution for enterprises, especially manufacturing ones, as it will enable Industry 4.0. This technology's use cases are very promising for the manufacturing industry since they allow processes to be more automated, predictive maintenance, and automatic optimization of process improvements. The aeronautical industry is not far behind in this development since there are already use cases implemented with private 5G networks that benefit from this connectivity for aircraft manufacturing and MRO(Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul) processes.

However, not all are advantages since the growth of private 5G networks brings challenges. Deployments of these can be inefficient and costly if prior RF(Radio Frequency) planning is not done correctly. Using more base stations than necessary for the desired coverage entails the risk of inadequate over-crowding space and using resources. Major companies in the world of RF planning have begun to release their solutions for the RF planning of private 5G networks, as is the case with iBWAVE, which presented its solution at the beginning of June 2022. However, the tools available on the market are neither established nor transparent regarding using 3GPP standards. Nor do they allow the option of doing a simulation that offers the optimal configuration of the network to be deployed with a single click; most are manual trial and error processes. In addition, these tools require trained personnel to use them. And their licenses are expensive, forcing small enterprises that deploy private 5G networks to depend on external companies hired for the RF planning of the networks to be deployed. This is inconvenient since it leaves them with little room for maneuver at such a crucial deployment stage.

The solution to this problem is proposed in this project, where the design and implementation of a private 5G wireless RF planning software tool is done. Our simulator uses 3GPP propagation models to calculate the coverage of indoor areas for private 5G networks. Its optimizer functionality provides the number of BS(Base Stations) and their location to obtain the desired channel capacity defined by the user. This easy-to-use tool requires no skilled personnel to use it and speeds up the deployment of a cost-efficient private 5G network.


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