Abstract: Open RAN is emerging as a new paradigm to evolve modern Radio Access Networks (RANs) into a more vendor-agnostic, software, and intelligent ecosystem. To this end, the O-RAN initiative is drafting specifications to provide the means to embrace it. In this context, open-source high-quality implementations of the aforementioned drafts are of utmost importance to accelerate its adoption.

In this lecture, we will first present the last features of FlexRIC, an open-source O-RAN nearRT-RIC, and its future direction. Following, we will present the minimal steps for developing a xApp. Lastly, a Q&A will be there to answer your questions.

Mikel Irazabal obtained his Ph.D. degree from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, BarcelonaTech (UPC) in 2021 while participating as an Early Stage Researcher (ESR) in the European-funded Project Application-Aware User-Centric Programmable Architectures for 5G multi-tenant networks (5G-AuRA), an Innovative Training Network (ITN) of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA). He has been the main architect and contributor of FlexRIC, one of the most successful open-source O-RAN near Real-Time RAN Intelligent Controller (nearRT-RIC). He also co-founded the Barcelona C/C++ meetup, where he has given several talks. He is a Senior Software Software Engineer at the OpenAirInterface Alliance.