Research database

The Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) is on track to completely transform the telecommunications ecosystem in the coming decade. O-RAN speci??cations are expected to drive 50\% of RAN-based revenues by 2028 for public networks and by 2027 for enterprise and industrial cellular segments and will exceed traditional RAN by 2030. This research proposal aims to investigate and develop a reliable O-RAN framework for time-critical and high-resource-demanding healthcare applications that also require a high level of privacy and security. An example of healthcare applications is remote surgery, which demands highly reliable and low-latency support from the network infrastructure. Other examples include the exchange of real-time health-related data of citizens between user equipment (UEs) and Qatari's Ministry of Health, as it has been necessary during the COVID pandemic, telemonitoring of remote patients, and high-speed ambulance services. O-RAN's potential for healthcare applications is still under-explored, and this research proposal aims to address this issue by developing a reliable O-RAN architecture, particularly for critical healthcare applications, including, but not limited to, remote surgery, emergency response, and telemonitoring. The project objectives are: (i) to study and investigate the capability, and the adaptation ability, of O-RAN components, (ii) to create new algorithmic solutions for enhancing network reliability, prioritizing healthcare applications through optimal allocation of network and computational resources, (iii) to design edge computing techniques to minimize latency, and (iv) to develop a testbed for validating the proposed algorithms. The expected outcomes of this project are twofold: ??rst, to advance the state-of-the-art O-RAN technology for healthcare applications by addressing the unique challenges and requirements of such applications, and second, to provide a practical and e??ective solution for building reliable and resilient wireless networks that can meet the needs of healthcare applications.