While the Open Radio Access Network Alliance (O-RAN) architecture enables third-party applications to optimize radio access networks at multiple timescales, real-time distributed applications (dApps) that demand low latency, high performance, and strong isolation remain underexplored. Existing approaches propose colocating a new RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) at the edge, or deploying dApps in bare metal along with RAN functions. While the former approach increases network complexity and requires additional edge computing resources, the latter raises serious security concerns due to the lack of native mechanisms to isolate dApps and RAN functions. Meanwhile, WebAssembly (Wasm) has emerged as a lightweight, fast technology for robust execution of external, untrusted code. In this work, we propose a new approach to executing dApps using Wasm to isolate applications in real-time in O-RAN. Results show that our lightweight and robust approach ensures predictable, deterministic performance, strong isolation, and low latency, enabling real-time control loops.

翻译：尽管开放式无线接入网联盟（O-RAN）架构允许第三方应用在多时间尺度上优化无线接入网，但对低延迟、高性能和强隔离性要求极为严苛的实时分布式应用（dApps）仍鲜有研究。现有方案提出在边缘部署新型RAN智能控制器（RIC），或与RAN功能一同在裸机上运行dApps。前者虽能实现目标，但会增加网络复杂性并需额外边缘计算资源；后者则因缺乏原生机制隔离dApps与RAN功能而引发严重安全问题。与此同时，WebAssembly（Wasm）作为轻量级快速技术，能够稳健执行外部不可信代码。本研究提出一种基于Wasm执行dApps的新方法，在O-RAN中实现应用的实时隔离。实验结果表明，该轻量化鲁棒方案能确保可预测的确定性性能、强隔离性与低延迟，从而实现实时控制闭环。