NETCOM Research Group

This integrated demo will interconnect different transport technologies carrying backhaul traffic, fronthaul traffic and both in one network, which demonstrates the 5G-Crosshaul data plane technologies developed in the project. The traffic of backhaul and fronthaul for different functional splits are multiplexed and/or aggregated via XPFE and XCSE. In particular, two types of mmWave-based transport solutions will be examined in this experiment, including backhaul/fronthaul (PDCP-RLC split) multiplexing with EdgeLink, and a mmWave interface incorporated with fast forwarding techniques handling fronthaul traffic with MAC-PHY splits. The traffic of two types of transport links will be independently fed into the XCSE with physically separate ports. On the other hand, compressed and packetized fronthaul (CPFH) will be applied to reduce bandwidth requirement of fronthaul traffic with a PHY-RF split. Also, backhaul traffic for a LTE eNodeB is considered. The multiplexed backhaul/fronthaul traffic will be injected into a XCSE and integrated switch, which will pass the traffic to BBU for lower-layer split (CPRI and CPFH), BBU for upper-layer split, and EPC in accordance to the functional split profile. An Integrated transport network that multiplex traffics with multiple functional splits will be demonstrated, and performance metrics such as latency jitter and throughput will be measured.

Involved Entities: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Interdigital, Ericsson, CND, NEC, Nokia.

Key innovations:

• 5G Fronthaul (Upper and Lower Layer Splits)
• Multi-Layered Crosshaul Transport (Circuit and Packet)
• Fiber-like Low Latency mmWave Wireless Crosshaul Transport

External links:

• 5G-Crosshaul – the 5G integrated fronthaul/backhaul