HiPer-RAN

Partners

• University of Surrey
• AWTG 
• Lime Microsystems
• Keysight technologies UK 
• Viavi solutions UK
• Virgin Media O2
• BT

Project Summary

The HiPer-RAN (Highly Intelligent, Highly Performing RAN) project aims to develop an open platform able to host diverse, software-based intelligence that accounts for the whole RAN architecture.  The platform will look to deliver measurable benefits at a system level, contributing to the acceleration of open-interface products and solutions, as well as to the development of an internationally recognised UK telecoms ecosystem.

HiPer-RAN faces two fundamental challenges. Firstly, the development of interoperable, efficient, and reliable software for automation operating at different time scales. Secondly, the efficient translation of intelligence into quantifiable and measurable gains, enabling high-performance, energy efficient, and low latency operation at a system level. 

As such, HiPer-RAN not only focuses on the challenging task of developing efficient and reliable intelligent software applications (e.g., xApps, rApps), but also on the efficient integration of such applications into actual RAN developments to enable measurable gains. Aims of HiPer-RAN include the development of a highly efficient, secure, and scalable Open RAN Intelligent control (RIC) framework. In addition, the development of a flexible, RIC-aware, physical layer framework that accounts for design parameters and processing challenges of Open-RAN systems, enabling alternative ways of designing, developing, and managing telecom infrastructure, that differs from single vendor solutions.

Professor Rahim Tafazolli, Regius Professor said: 

“HiPer-RAN is an ambitious project that will strongly contribute to the diversification of the UK’s RAN technology marketplace, and will deliver significant, measurable and diverse performance gains, across a wide range of requirements and use-cases, by accommodating innovation across all aspects of the RAN design. The HiPer-RAN consortium consists of partners with a strong and complementary expertise in the field, that bring together their prior product development and research outcomes with the ambition to play a leading role in the development and adoption of Open-RAN technologies, supporting the UK's leading role in the field.”