Implementation of C-RAN Architecture with CU-CP and CU-UP Separation Based on SDR/NFV

Cloud-Radio Access Network (C-RAN) architecture has been considered widely in wireless network research. Software Defined Radio (SDR) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) technologies realize flexible deployments of C-RAN. In our paper, a testbed based on SDR and NFV is built for splitting C-RAN into several independent units: Centralized Unit Control Plane (CU-CP), Centralized Unit User Plane (CU-UP) and Distributed Unit (DU). To realize communications among the different units, we focus on the scheme of communication framework and the modification of signaling flow. In addition, the three units are deployed on different virtual machines as an experimental testbed for functional validation and performance testing. Finally, we provide socket and Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) with three different encryption algorithms in CU-CP/CU-UP testing. The results show the proposed architecture indeed has an effective performance.