How to Measure the Energy Efficiency of an O-DU / O-CU

+ UE / O-RU Emulator

Measuring O-DU / O-CU energy efficiency following ETSI standards

Ensuring accurate and standardized energy efficiency (EE) of O-DU (Open Distributed Unit) and O-CU (Open Centralized Unit) in an Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) involves assessing various factors related to power consumption, resource utilization, and overall network performance. As EE is the ratio of delivered bits and consumed energy, test engineers need access to the user equipment (UE) throughput data to ensure that lower energy consumption (EC) is not at the cost of lower quality of service. To measure the EE of an O-DU and O-CU, emulation is needed for the fronthaul and backhaul interface. In addition, test engineers must be able to simulate different UE traffic profiles.

The fronthaul needs an O-RU emulator to provide the interface to the O-DU. A UE emulator simulates the traffic flow to the O-RU emulator requested by the UEs. The backhaul requires a core emulator or a live core network. An AC or DC power supply capable of recording the output power measures the combined energy consumption of O-DU / O-CU. The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) specification did not put a requirement for the disaggregated base station architecture, so the points of power measurement can vary depending on the implementation. The test software generates an energy efficiency report by simulating different UE traffic profiles with varying path loss, file size, and throughput.

O-DU / O-CU energy efficiency test solution

Measuring the energy efficiency of an O-DU and O-CU requires emulation. The Keysight O-DU / O-CU energy efficiency test solution includes the O-RU, UE, and core network emulator and a combination of advanced power systems that deliver AC / DC power to O-DU / O-CU to characterize the power consumption. The E-plane test suite for O-DU / O-CU provides test engineers with a unified software framework to control the instruments for automated benchmarking and reporting.

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