The trends of network virtualization are coming to radio-access networks (RAN) in order to unify the platform for the multi-access edge computing (MEC) applications. The problems of virtual radio access networks (vRAN) are performance efficiency and flexibility. The radio signal processing for 5G is highly complex, and is difficult to coexist with the MEC application in the same equipment.
The NVIDIA Aerial is the SDK for 5G-based vRAN on the GPU, that supports more than 100MHz bandwidth and massive multiple-input and multiple-output without sacrificing flexibility from virtualization. The GPU itself also provides flexibility with higher-level programming language and device-level virtualization capability to implement and execute MEC applications on the same platform of vRAN systems.
We'll share the overviews of our recent activities toward efficient coexistence of vRAN and MEC applications. We have evaluated the performance and functionalities of the Aerial, and conducted the proof of concept of MEC applications using NVIDIA Broadcast and CloudXR SDK that are assumed to coexist with Aerial.