User Slicing Scheme with Functional Split Selection in 5G Cloud-RAN

Next Generation 5G Radio Access Network (NG-RAN) is envisioned to integrate the slicing approach to build a flexible network supporting diverse use-cases with customized architectures, features and services. RAN processing functional splits have been standardized to add new deployment design capabilities and enhance cost efficiency. A further challenge consists in how to meet the multitude use-case's requirements while considering different design models in the physical infrastructure. Current related works are tackling the slice embedding problem from a cell-centric perspective. However, to achieve greater flexibility and better resource utilization, a user-centric approach should be more exploited. In this paper, we propose a SLICE-HPSO scheme that jointly harnesses radio, processing and link resources at the user level to build multiple user slices on top of the physical infrastructure. Our proposal is tailored to different user quality-of-service requirements and to the diverse functional splits resource requests. SLICE-HPSO is in compliance with the 3GPP and optimizes further the heterogeneous resource usage while meeting the scalability requirement.