Real-time O-RAN fronthaul analyzer

A hardware accelerator for real-time analysis of an Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) fronthaul link, comprising:

• a counter to maintain a clock;
• one or more Medium Access Controller (MAC) receivers to receive and timestamp packets of an O-RAN Distributed Unit (O-DU) fronthaul packet traffic flow and an O-RAN Radio Unit (O-RU) fronthaul packet traffic flow on the O-RAN fronthaul link, wherein the received packets are timestamped based on the counter;
• an arbiter to combine the timestamped packets of the O-RAN Distributed Unit (O-DU) fronthaul packet traffic flow and the O-RAN Radio Unit (O-RU) fronthaul packet traffic flow into a single stream of packets;
• a parser to receive the single stream of packets, parse the packets of the single stream of packets, and to route the parsed packets into different circuit paths based on a routing criteria;
• and
• a Control Plane and User Plane (C/U-Plane) timing hardware packet analyzer to receive C/U-Plane packets routed by the parser from the single stream of packets and to generate C/U-Plane analytical timing measurements in real-time using timestamps of the C/U-Plane packets.

A method of real-time analysis of an Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) fronthaul link, the method comprising:

• receiving, by a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), an Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) fronthaul link packet traffic flow between an O-RAN Distributed Unit (O-DU) and an O-RAN Radio Unit (O-RU);
• adding, by the FPGA, timing information to each packet in the received O-RAN fronthaul link packet traffic flow;
• parsing, by the FPGA, metadata from a header of each packet in the received O-RAN fronthaul link packet traffic flow, the parsing comprising:
• parsing Control Plane (C-Plane) and User Plane (U-Plane) packets (C/U-Plane packets) from the O-DU fronthaul packet traffic flow and O-RU fronthaul packet traffic flow;
• routing the C/U-Plane packets to a window estimation hardware packet analyzer in the FPGA;
• analyzing, by the FPGA, a plurality of packets in the received O-RAN fronthaul link packet traffic flow using at least one of the added timing information or the parsed metadata of the plurality of packets, the analyzing comprising:
• monitoring timing parameters of the C/U-Plane packets;
• and
• calculating early, late, and on-time transmission or reception windows of the C/U-Plane packets in real-time;
• and
• continuously generating, by the FPGA, analytical timing measurements of the O-RAN fronthaul link based on the analyzing of the plurality of packets.