Implementation of the E3 Agent for dApps and E3AP

Andrea Lacavarequested to merge
dapp into develop

These changes introduce an E3 Agent for dApps in the OAI codebase. dApps are real-time microservices designed to operate within the O-RAN ecosystem, enabling sub-10 ms Artificial Intelligence (AI) routines in the Radio Access Network (RAN). The E3 Agent enables spectrum sensing, frequency-domain signal logging, and dynamic PRB (Physical Resource Block) policies through IPC/ZMQ communication with dApps or xApps.

The dApps are designed for co-location with the CU/DU, where it can interact directly with user-plane data to enable different network management scenarios such as optimizing network slicing, scheduling, and resource management.

A python library for the creation of the dApps is available here.

Additional information about dApps:

Major changes introduced through this MR

  • Introduced E3 Agent with modular design:
    • openair1/E3AP/ folder includes ASN.1 definitions, handlers, and connectors.
    • Modular connector abstraction for ZMQ and POSIX IPC, allowing flexible deployment options.
  • CMakeLists.txt: New E3_AGENT option (ON/OFF) to enable/disable E3 support.
  • build_oai script: Added --build-e3 option.
  • Configuration entries added under E3Configuration in example .conf files.
  • Added a new T-tracer event: GNB_PHY_UL_FREQ_SENSING_SYMBOL.
  • Integration of spectrum sensing logic in phy_procedures_nr_gNB.c and delivery over IPC.
  • Scheduler extended to accept PRB usage hints from the E3 Agent.
  • Dynamic PRB blockage where PRBs marked as unavailable (0x3FFF) are excluded from DL/UL scheduling.
  • Extended tracer logs to include E3AP logs:
    • LEGACY_E3AP_INFO, ERROR, WARNING, DEBUG, TRACE.
  • Add support for Unix Domain sockets (UDS) in the T tracer utils.c

Notes

  • IPC permissions (/tmp/dapps) are handled to allow group-level access (chmod 0777 + chown). This is a limitation due to the root (OAI) vs non-root (dApp) situation. The E3 transport layers not depending on IPC are not affected by this.
Edited by Andrea Lacava

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