Huawei Unveils IntelligentRAN 2.0 to Bring L4 Autonomous Networks into Reality

At the 10th Intelligent RAN Industry Summit held during the Global Mobile Broadband Forum 2024 (MBBF 2024), Calvin Zhao, President of Huawei Wireless MAE Product Line, launched the IntelligentRAN 2.0 solution. IntelligentRAN 2.0 represents a comprehensive upgrade of the architecture of intelligent networks and features new capabilities that promise to improve network productivity and bring level 4 (L4) autonomous wireless networks into reality.

Calvin Zhao, President of Huawei Wireless MAE Product Line, speaking at the 10th Intelligent RAN Industry Summit

The upgraded architecture, Zhao told attendees, is called Highly Autonomous Network Architecture (HANA), and the level of autonomy it would bring to wireless networks is comparable to that seems in L4 self-driving cars. "At Huawei, we envision the age of All Intelligence, and we are committed to providing every person with an intelligent personal assistant, helping every company become an intelligent enterprise, and powering every vehicle with autonomous driving. Just like L4 self-driving enables a door-to-door experience with simple input from passengers, IntelligentRAN 2.0 uses HANA to improve sensing, analysis, decision-making, and execution in wireless networks. So, HANA plays an essential role in bringing operators closer to L4 autonomous networks, especially as the wireless networks are becoming larger and more complex." Zhao presented a three-layer model to elaborate on how HANA enables these intelligent capabilities.

Service layer: flexible intent openness for intelligent orchestration

Just as traditional cars use accelerators, brakes, and wheels, previous IntelligentRAN used hundreds of fixed APIs to open capabilities to upper-layer applications. HANA represents a shift away from fixed APIs to a paradigm of intent interfaces that feature flexible openness capabilities. During service orchestration, user intent, expressed through natural language, is translated based on the telecom foundation model to enable networks to respond to service needs from users, just like self-driving provides door-to-door experience simply based on user-specified destinations.

Network layer: Intelligent RAN Digital Twins for Multidimensional Analysis and Decision-Making

In the same way that self-driving was achieved through an iterative process, starting with basic assistance such as automatic parking and cruise control and only later leveling up to door-to-door automation, HANA expands the adoption of intelligent agents from single-scenario analysis to joint objective analysis across multiple scenarios, and also progresses towards becoming more real time in the generation, analysis, and decision making of the impact on and gains of networks. Multiple iterative simulations and predictions are possible within RAN digital twin systems, allowing the generation and delivery of multiple policy optimizations to wireless networks all at once. This in turn helps reduce impact on wireless networks and makes the system more intelligent as it is helping improve the networks.

Device layer: site digitalization for site sensing and controllability

Traditional cars need drivers to recognize road conditions, and traditional sites require site visits, because it's not possible to remotely check the status of all passive site equipments accurately, increasing O&M costs. In HANA, passive equipment is upgraded to ambient sites, making site digitalization a reality. This means power supplies, and transmission systems can all be linked with the site main equipment and antennas, becoming sensable to wireless networks. The digitalization of a site is equivalent to adding radar sensing and automatic control to self-driving cars.

At the summit, Huawei unveiled the industry's first batch of scenario-tailored digital engineers based on HANA. These digital engineers support feature-rich core capabilities to enable real-time optimization, 24/7 energy saving, and differentiated experience assurance.IntelligentRAN 2.0 marks an important milestone for Huawei to enable operators worldwide to build highly autonomous wireless networks. Within the "Intelligent RAN, Ubiquitous AI Project" led by the Global TD-LTE Initiative (GTI) and other initiatives in the mobile industry, Huawei will continue to work with other industry players to explore innovative intelligent applications and build a thriving ecosystem that promotes business growth.