MWC 2022: Huawei unveils innovation for 5Gigaverse, IntelligentRAN architecture

Third-generation time division duplex (TDD) massive multiple input, multiple output (M-MIMO) products and frequency division duplex (FDD) ultra-wideband multi-antenna products, as well as IntelligentRAN architecture, are to form the vanguard of the new comms infrastructure proposed by Huawei.

And as the comms tech firm laid out details of its new products, Huawei said it believed they would greatly boost operators’ confidence in building not only high-quality 5G networks, but also green ones, improving energy efficiency and network performance.

“5G's large-bandwidth and multi-antenna technologies have brought tangible benefits,” said Gan Bin, vice-president and chief marketing officer of Huawei Wireless Solution (pictured above), speaking at MWC 2022 in an address entitled Innovation for 5Gigaverse Society.

“We move ahead and continue to innovate in these two areas,” he said. “Our third-generation Massive MIMO and FDD ultra-wideband multi-antenna portfolios further improve network performance and energy efficiency.”

The third-generation TDD Massive MIMO series includes the third-generation MetaAAU and BladeAAU series. The third-generation Massive MIMO doubles the antenna elements of its previous generation from 192 to 384 – more than triple that of the first generation. Huawei said it was the only one in the industry to have done so.

Also, the new MetaAAU uses the extremely large antenna array (ELAA) and adaptive high resolution (AHR) Turbo beam-forming algorithm to achieve what the company claims are breakthroughs in Massive MIMO performance and energy efficiency. Compared with traditional 64T, the coverage of this product is said to have improved by 3dB and user experience by 30%. Compared with traditional 32T, the coverage is improved by 6dB and user experience by 60%, and compared with traditional AAUs, the power consumption is reduced by about 30% when coverage counters remain unchanged.

Huawei said that for scenarios using discrete spectrum or requiring network co-construction and sharing, ultra-wideband products with a bandwidth of 400MHz and a transmit power of 400W would be very helpful for implementing simplified deployment. In scenarios where antenna space is limited, Huawei’s BladeAAU will implement deployment of all sub-6GHz frequency bands, facilitating deployment in all scenarios.

At the head of the FDD ultra-wideband multi-antenna products slate is what is called the industry’s lightest true wideband 4T4R RRU, which supports simplified deployment of 700–900MHz and 1.8–2.6/1.4GHz multi-band networks and dynamic power sharing across all modes.

Stated improvements include a 30% improvement in user experience and power consumption reduced by 30%, and the industry’s first high-power, ultra-wideband 8T8R, which uses the combination of 1.8GHz and 2.1GHz to provide equivalent coverage to the sub-1GHz band, benefiting both 4G and 5G networks by increasing their capacity by 1.6 and three times, respectively.

Boasting what Huawei calls the industry’s only 8T8R native, green antenna of the platform, the energy consumption is further reduced by 15%. For scenarios requiring large capacity, the company said it can offer the industry’s only commercial FDD Massive MIMO, which increases 4G network capacity by three times compared with 4T networks and 5G network capacity by five times.

Designed for residential areas and urban hotspots, the TDD and FDD dual-band EasyMacro 3.0 and Book RRU 3.0 solutions have been launched to simplify on-demand deployment and quickly fill 5G coverage holes, said Huawei. To meet requirements for indoor areas such as railway stations and shopping malls, the company believes it has created the industry’s only distributed Massive MIMO, which improves capacity by four times compared with 4T and user experience by more than 30%, creating a ubiquitous indoor gigabit experience.

The company’s IntelligentRAN solutions are considered as providing an industry architecture that brings intelligence to almost all aspects of a wireless network. They are designed to enable autonomous networks featuring smart service, optimisation, green and simplified O&M, facilitating operators to explore new space and business forms of 5G.

The range uses a Mobile Intelligent Engine (MIE) to enable network autonomy through data, model and decision collaboration between site layer and network layer. Optimal experiences are said to be based on three key technologies: L3 intelligent grid, L2 scheduling dictionary and L1 channel graph. These are attributed with improving the user experience by more than 50% on multi-band and multi-site networks.

Embedded within the system is Smart Green technology, engineered to maximise energy efficiency with continuous experience by introducing MIE – NRT (non-real-time) and RT (real-time). These are intended to optimise the energy saving strategy in terms of multi-dimensional parameters to ensure maximal effect across networks.

The technology is intended to achieve accurate provisioning and reliable SLA with an MIE, which will adjust network parameters based on SLA network in real time and provide reliable SLA assurance without affecting the experience of other services.