Optimizing Open-Distributed Group Communications (ORIGIN)

Open Radio Access Network (ORAN) architectures in conjunction with 5G allow modular and disaggregated design via open interfaces and intelligent controllers. The ORAN architecture extends the software-defined network (SDN) concept of decoupling the control-plane from the user-plane into RAN while bringing in embedded intelligence to further enhance the traditional Radio Resource Management (RRM) functions by introducing two hierarchical RAN Intelligent Controllers (RICs), namely the non-real-time (Non-RT) RIC and the near-real-time (Near-RT) RIC that enable data driven closed loop control for optimal frequency planning, scheduling, transmission strategies, power control, and network slicing. In this proposal, we build on these developments and propose an open architecture and control applications for Distributed Group Communications that are critical for distributed service management orchestration (SMO) in the Army and DoD settings, where groups of radio nodes are distributed and the connectivity between them will rely on wireless links that cannot rely on infrastructure such as base stations.