2026-04-17T03:07:14Zhttps://recercat.cat/oai/request

oai:recercat.cat:2117/3615632026-02-04T08:39:10Zcom_2072_1033col_2072_452950

00925njm 22002777a 4500 dc Pérez Romero, Jordi author Sallent Roig, Oriol author 2021 Along the successive generations, mobile network infrastructure deployments have required continuous expansion and upgrades to respond to the ever increasing traffic demand. At the same time, user equipment (UE) has evolved with the introduction of powerful and advanced communication and computational capabilities. Moreover, several industrial initiatives are promoting the principles of RAN disaggregation through the split of RAN functionalities among multiple interoperable components in contrast to traditional monolithic solutions. Embracing these trends, this paper presents the vision of a Beyond 5G (B5G) scenario where the UE takes a more active role in the communication service provisioning and is used to augment the RAN infrastructure as a source of distributed capacity and network intelligence. This is expected to bring benefits for Mobile Network Operators by reducing the number of base stations to deploy and by providing the RAN with a new degree of flexibility for smartly and dynamically adapting the RAN to the specific needs. In this direction, after discussing the main enabling technologies of the envisaged RAN augmentation concept, this paper presents a simulation-based assessment to quantify the performance improvements and the achievable savings in terms of infrastructure deployment. This paper is part of ARTIST project (ref. PID2020- 115104RB-I00) funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/ 501100011033. Peer Reviewed Postprint (author's final draft) Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Enginyeria de la telecomunicació::Processament del senyal 5G mobile communication systems Machine learning Beyond 5G Radio access network User equipment Federated learning UE-to-network relaying Comunicacions mòbils, Sistemes de Aprenentatge automàtic Leveraging user equipment for radio access network augmentation