NTN-ready disaggregated RAN
Design L/S-band NTN radio hardware and flight-payload interfaces alongside functional splits and RIC placement for satellite/aerial mobility, variable delays and backhaul.
01 / ABOUT THE PROJECT
About O²-RAN
An AI-native Open RAN framework designed for the realities of non-terrestrial networks.
01 / PROJECT OVERVIEW
About O2-RAN
Building a foundation for intelligent, resilient non-terrestrial communication infrastructure.
Extending Open RAN beyond terrestrial networks
Non-terrestrial networks (NTNs) are becoming essential to next-generation connectivity, but traditional network designs depend heavily on proprietary architectures and communication-only control. Satellites and uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) present new challenges, including orbital mobility, Doppler shifts, intermittent links and strict size, weight and power constraints.
O2-RAN develops an AI-native, compute-aware Open RAN framework tailored to those conditions. The project adapts radio, distributed and central functions, extends RAN intelligent control and coordinates edge workloads across space, air and ground.
The research combines standards-aligned architecture, intelligent orchestration and experimental validation through three representative use cases: resilient aerial base stations, direct-to-cell connectivity and UAV swarms with multi-access edge computing.
PROJECT GOALS
Scientific objectives
Project goals based on the accepted O²-RAN research proposal.
AI-native predictive control
Develop predictive/cooperative beamforming and xApps/rApps for mobility forecasting, intelligent scheduling, network slicing and life-cycle-aware adaptation.
Joint communication & computing
Expose compute, queue, energy and workload state for coordinating services across diverse edge nodes.
Mission-oriented validation
Integrate and assess the architecture in resilient aerial networking, direct-to-cell satellite access and UAV swarm scenarios.
BROADER IMPACTS
Research, education & translation
The project is intended to strengthen resilience in disasters and other infrastructure-limited environments, foster workforce training in intelligent communications and aerospace systems, and support reproducible research through future releases of software, results and datasets.
Translation and demonstration partners contribute radio, UAV and satellite platforms, supporting the project’s path from research prototypes toward larger-scale technology validation. These are research objectives; achieved impacts and performance will be reported after evaluation.