Midhaul Control Connection Addition for Open RAN Redundancy
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Solution Overview
Problem
In Open RAN systems, single-home midhaul control connections are prone to failures due to limited protocol addresses, leading to terminal disconnections and outages, and converting to multi-home connections requires resetting the midhaul connection, which can cause further disruptions.
Innovation Solution
A method to add a second midhaul control connection using an additional protocol address without resetting the existing connection, allowing the transport layer micro-service to associate terminals with both protocol addresses for redundancy, ensuring continuous communication by switching to the secondary address if issues arise with the primary one.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If a single-home midhaul control connection is used, then the system structure is simple, but the connection is prone to failures leading to terminal disconnections and outages
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the parameter of protocol address allocation from single-home to multi-home, allowing the distributed unit to be associated with multiple protocol addresses. This enables redundant midhaul control connections, improving reliability while maintaining manageable system complexity through structured address management and association mechanisms.
2Reliability
If converting to multi-home connections is performed, then connection redundancy is improved, but the midhaul connection must be reset causing disruptions
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by pre-establishing multiple midhaul control connections with different protocol addresses before failures occur. The distributed unit maintains associations with multiple addresses in advance, so when a failure is detected, it can immediately switch to a pre-configured alternate connection without resetting, eliminating service disruptions.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces dynamic switching capability where the distributed unit can adaptively change the active protocol address based on connection status. The system dynamically selects which protocol address to use for communication, enabling seamless failover from a failed connection to a standby connection without requiring connection resets.
Data Source
AI summary
Midhaul control connection addition is performed by requesting, from the transport layer micro-service through the first midhaul control connection, a second midhaul control connection utilizing a second midhaul connection protocol address, and establishing the second midhaul control connection utilizing the second midhaul connection protocol address.