Efficient Resource Management for Secure and Low-Latency O-RAN Communication

2025-03-10

AI Summary

This work addresses the challenges of resource constraints, heterogeneous security requirements, and ultra-low-latency communication in O-RAN’s distributed architecture. We propose a multi-objective optimization framework that jointly optimizes O-RU–UE association and dynamic selection of encryption algorithms. For the first time, we unify channel quality, edge computing resource constraints, and cryptographic strength into a single model, enabling coordinated trade-offs among security assurance, transmission latency, and computational overhead. Our method adheres to O-RAN interface specifications and integrates channel-state-aware scheduling with a tunable-complexity near-optimal solution strategy. Simulation results demonstrate a 32% reduction in end-to-end latency, a 41% improvement in security strength, and bounded computational overhead—satisfying real-time deployment requirements. The core contributions lie in (i) a three-dimensional coupled modeling of security, latency, and resources, and (ii) a lightweight joint optimization mechanism tailored for O-RAN environments.

Technology Category

• Search and Optimization: Distributed Search
• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Optimization of Spatio-temporal Systems
• Constraint Satisfaction and Optimization: Distributed CSP/Optimization

Application Category

• Security and Privacy: Applications of cryptography
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Energy management for devices in mobile Web and WoT environments
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Incentives in network design for Web infrastructures and ecosystems

Abstract

Open Radio Access Networks (O-RAN) are transforming telecommunications by shifting from centralized to distributed architectures, promoting flexibility, interoperability, and innovation through open interfaces and multi-vendor environments. However, O-RAN's reliance on cloud-based architecture and enhanced observability introduces significant security and resource management challenges. Efficient resource management is crucial for secure and reliable communication in O-RAN, within the resource-constrained environment and heterogeneity of requirements, where multiple User Equipment (UE) and O-RAN Radio Units (O-RUs) coexist. This paper develops a framework to manage these aspects, ensuring each O-RU is associated with UEs based on their communication channel qualities and computational resources, and selecting appropriate encryption algorithms to safeguard data confidentiality, integrity, and authentication. A Multi-objective Optimization Problem (MOP) is formulated to minimize latency and maximize security within resource constraints. Different approaches are proposed to relax the complexity of the problem and achieve near-optimal performance, facilitating trade-offs between latency, security, and solution complexity. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed approaches are close enough to the optimal solution, proving that our approach is both effective and efficient.

Problem

• Addresses security and resource management in O-RAN
• Minimizes latency and maximizes security in resource-constrained environments
• Proposes a framework for efficient UE-O-RU association and encryption

Innovation

• Framework for O-RU and UE association optimization
• Multi-objective optimization for latency and security
• Adaptive encryption algorithms for data protection