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TECHNICAL HIGHLIGHTS

AUTONOMOUS NETWORK

STANDARDIZATION

IN WG SA5

By Thomas Tovinger, SA5 Chair

and Zou Lan, SA5 Vice-Chair

The 5G network is complex due to large Autonomous Network Levels (ANL) collection (task C) and network adjustment
number of devices and services. Different ANL is aiming to provide guidance for solution execution (task J) are expected to
autonomy mechanisms are therefore how to achieve full autonomy in a step- firstly achieve partial autonomy.
introduced in the industry to reduce the by-step approach. Using radio network With evolving technology, in level
complexity of network management and and service optimization management as 3, network issues identification and
control.
an example, without adopting ANL, the demarcation task (D and F) could achieve
The ultimate goal of the Autonomous optimization workflow may need quite full autonomy. Based on that, cases related
Network (AN) is to enable the some human efforts. Considering that to network deterioration prediction (task E)
telecommunication system to govern itself mobile user activity may vary significantly and network issue root cause analysis (task
with minimal to no human intervention at different locations and different times G) could reach partial autonomy.
by utilizing autonomy mechanisms with of day, operators need to adjust coverage Closed-loop SLS assurance
AI. Autonomous Networks can reduce the configuration parameters with the change A control loop is a building block for
OPEX and improve the service experience of radio network environment. management of networks and services
for various vertical industries (e.g. When operators start considering adopting consisting of monitoring, analytic, decision
autonomous vehicles).
autonomous mechanisms in their process, and execution steps. The basic principle of
The following SA5 features support the it is recommended to split the workflow any control loop is to adjust the value of
AN in Rel-17: Autonomous network levels, into smaller tasks, then select simpler ones a measured or observed variable to equal
Closed-loop SLS assurance, Intent driven for autonomy at the first step, gradually the value of a desired goal. E.g. in ANL for
management, Self-Organizing Network and selecting more complex tasks into full network optimization, some closed-loop
Management Data Analytics. The first three autonomy. automation cases can be achieved based on
of these are introduced in this article. connection to monitoring, analytic, decision
In the figure below, the optimization and execution related tasks (C, D, F, I and J)
workflow is divided into 10 tasks (A to
J). In level 1, network related information from ANL 3.

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