VIAVI TeraVM RIC Test provides a comprehensive validation test suite for the RAN Interface Controller/SMO (near and non RT) element of the O-RAN ecosystem.

The RAN intelligent controller (RIC) enables near and non real time RAN optimization by direct communication and control of O-RAN elements O-DU and O-CU over the O-RAN Alliance standardized E2/O1/A1 interfaces.

The RIC will host container based microservices (x/r-Apps) which use the E2/O1 interface to collect RAN information on RAN aspects such as network admission control, Energy consumption, resource utilization, QoS fulfilment and other RAN network KPIs. Configuration data (CM) can be obtained through those interfaces as well. After getting all the CM, PM data the x/r- app will send control command to Network Elements via E2/O1 interfaces to update configuration in order to optimize Network performance. This complete closed loop emulation can be enabled by VIAVI's RIC TEST solution.

RIC/App developers face several challenges:

How to generate gNB, O-DU and O-CU traffic to ensure the RIC interpretation of the E2 standard is implemented correctly
How to configure multiple load, capacity and mobility scenarios as inputs to RIC for optimization algorithms
How to stimulate x/rApps with rich stream of UE simulations and scenarios to test App performance and interoperability
How to close the loop and check RIC recommendations have the desired effect on the RAN
How to train the App AI/ML models with the most relevant RAN Scenarios?
How to benchmark and score App's goals achievements vs multiple complex RAN Scenarios?
How to detect and resolve potential x/r apps conflicts ?

This is where TeraVM RIC Test comes in. Emulating UEs, gNBs, O-DUs, O-CUs, mobility patterns path loss propagation models etc. allows the above challenges to be met using the TeraVM x86 based SW tool 3 in one Solution : Interface Test, Ran Scenario Generator and App Validation Engine