Samsung R&D Bangalore (SRI-B) in collaboration with Samsung Research Seoul organized the first edition of the Open Road to Next Generation Mobile Networks (Open-RAN) along with the IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC) on the 25th of May. The workshop was held to combine advancements in open mobile networks, spectrum availability, and intelligent network applications.

Around 12 research papers were presented by the authors across the globe from the industry as well as universities. The workshop was divided into seven sessions and each session comprised of 20-25 participants. The topics that were mainly covered included Open-RAN infrastructure, modelling, analysis, and intelligent AI/Ml solutions. Different researchers from countries like India, China, US, Korea, Pakistan, and Bangladesh were brought on a single platform to discuss the ideas, thoughts, and research on Open-RAN and was much appreciated by all the researchers across the globe.
 

Dr. Intaik Park, Corporate VP from Samsung Research; Dr. Sukhdeep Singh from Access System Design Team of SRI-B; and Prof. Nawab Faseeh Qureshi from SKK University, South Korea served as General Chair of the workshop. Dr. Sunghyun Choi, Corporate Senior VP from Samsung Research, was also a part of the Steering Committee. Jayasuryan Iyer, Director, Network R&D and Avinash Bhat, GM, Network R&D were also key members in the Steering Committee and represented SRI-B.

As per Dr. Intaik Park, "It was a great experience to witness SR and SRI-B collaborating to organize a workshop in IEEE WCNC 2020 on a much discussed topic of Open-RAN in the advanced network domain. We were able to attract various researchers across the globe to share their perspectives and ideas. I hope to see more of such efforts between the two research organizations in the future."

Researchers across continents collaborated and submitted their research and the Outstanding / Best Paper Award was also applauded during this workshop. The research on 'Data-driven Semi-supervised Anomaly Detection using Real-World Call Data Record' co-authored by Shan Jaffry (Dongguan University of Technology & IEEE ComSoc, China); Syed Faraz Hasan (Massey University, New Zealand); Syed Tariq Shah (Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea & Balochistan University of Information Technology, Engineering, and Management Sciences, Pakistan) received great appreciation and commendation.
 

Dr. Sukhdeep Singh on his experience as one of the key organizer shared, "I am glad to have represented SRI-B on a global platform and organize a workshop on Open-RAN in IEEE WCNC 2020. We collaborated with SVP and VP from SR Seoul along with some professors, which definitely has left a strong impact in the research community and showcased Samsung as the leader in terms of research and development."

The workshop also had eminent keynote speakers like Dr. Kaustubh Joshi, Director, Wireless network from AT&T Research and Prof. Harpreet S Dhillon, Associate Professor, Wireless from Virginia Tech from the US. Also present were Mr. Subodh Gajare, Senior Solutions Architect from Cisco R&D from India and Mr. Satish Jamadagni, VP, Network Planning Engineering, Head of Standards from Reliance Jio. The keynote speakers highlighted the growing trends and research opportunities in Open-RAN and RAN intelligence, which the sessions were chaired by Dr. Intaik Park and Avinash.

With this international workshop, the prowess of SRI-B Network R&D was showcased and the team is gearing up for the second edition of this workshop in the upcoming IEEE Globecom 2020 to be held in Taiwan in Dec 2020.