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RICtest: O-RAN E2 Nodes

Emulation Solution

for RAN Intelligent Controller Testing

Validating 5G RAN Optimization at Scale

5G functionalities like radio access network (RAN) functional splits, control

plane and user plane separation (CUPS) and network slicing require

advanced monitoring and analytical capabilities to configure, optimize, and

control the RAN infrastructure at the edge.

The RAN intelligent controller (RIC) functional entity provides advanced

control capabilities, enabling increased efficiency and better radio resource

management by leveraging analytics and data-driven operations to optimize

access network utilization. The RIC consists of a near-real time controller

(Near-RT RIC) that implements functionalities requiring low latency and a

non-real-time controller (Non-RT RIC) for operations without stringent

latency needs. The near-real time RIC software platform provides a cloud-

based infrastructure to host various applications (xApps) for controlling a

distributed set of RAN elements (eNB, gNB, CU, DU) over the E2 interface

from the O-RAN Alliance.

Keysight’s RICtest solution emulates all E2 node types standardized by the

working group 3 (WG3) of the O-RAN Alliance for testing RIC functionalities

at any scale.

The solution supports thousands of E2 connections and is ideal for network

vendors who want to test the scalability of their RIC architectures. This cloud-

native solution supports the CU user plane (CU-UP) / CU control plane (CU-

CP) split and both 5G non-standalone (NSA) and standalone (SA) topologies.

Testing RIC functionalities

at scale over the E2

interface

• Supports all standardized E2

node types, at configurable

mix and quantity

• Emulates thousands of E2

connections

• Emulates tens of thousands

of active devices

• Cloud-native solution

• 5G NSA / SA topologies

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Simulating Any O-RAN E2 Topology

Keysight RICtest is the perfect companion to perform large-scale emulation of all possible node types

connected to the near-RT RIC over the E2 interface (Figure 1), as defined in O-RAN Alliance WG3:

• O-eNB

• O-gNB

• combined O-DU and O-CU

• combined O-DU and split O-CU-CP / O-CU-UP

RICtest enables you to configure the emulated nodes including node types, node number, user

equipment (UE) number and distribution, and UE traffic models.

Figure 1. RIC testing topology

Seamless Integration of 3

Party xAPPs

Near-RT RIC hosted xApp applications use E2 nodes services to

increase network efficiency, optimize network resources, and enable you

to provide more reliable services. xApp applications are independent

from the Near-RT RIC and can come from any third-party. There can be

many different types of xApps, making it difficult to define a common set

of valuable information over the E2 interface to test these applications.

RICtest offers a Traffic Model configurator that you can tune to provide

the specific measurements of interest to an xApp application, at volumes

that are impossible to achieve in a real end-to-end lab setting.