Vehicular communications integrated with the Radio Access Network (RAN) are envisioned as a breakthrough application for the 6th generation (6G) cellular systems. However, traditional RANs lack the flexibility to enable sophisticated control mechanisms that are demanded by the strict performance requirements of the vehicle-to-everything (V2X) environment. In contrast, the features of Open RAN (O-RAN) can be exploited to support advanced use cases, as its core paradigms represent an ideal framework for orchestrating vehicular communication. Although the high potential stemming from their integration can be easily seen and recognized, the effective combination of the two ecosystems is an open issue. Conceptual and architectural advances are required for O-RAN to be capable of facilitating network intelligence in V2X. This article pioneers the integration of the two strategies for seamlessly incorporating V2X control within O-RAN ecosystem. First, an enabling architecture that tightly integrates V2X and O-RAN is proposed and discussed. Then, a set of key V2X challenges is identified, and O-RAN-based solutions are proposed, paired with extensive numerical analysis to support their effectiveness. Results showcase the superior performance of such an approach in terms of raw throughput, network resilience, and control overhead. Finally, these results validate the proposed enabling architecture and confirm the potential of O-RAN in support of V2X communications.

翻译：与无线接入网络（RAN）集成的车联网通信被设想为第六代（6G）蜂窝系统的突破性应用。然而，传统RAN缺乏灵活性，无法实现车联网（V2X）环境中严格性能要求所需的复杂控制机制。相比之下，开放无线接入网络（O-RAN）的特性可用于支持高级用例，其核心范式为编排车联网通信提供了理想框架。尽管二者集成所带来的巨大潜力显而易见，但这两个生态系统的有效结合仍是一个开放性问题。O-RAN需要在概念和架构上取得进展，才能促进V2X中的网络智能。本文率先提出了将V2X控制无缝纳入O-RAN生态系统的两种策略的集成方案。首先，提出并讨论了一种紧密集成V2X与O-RAN的使能架构。随后，识别了一系列关键的V2X挑战，并提出了基于O-RAN的解决方案，同时辅以广泛的数值分析以验证其有效性。结果表明，该方法在原始吞吐量、网络弹性和控制开销方面均展现出优越性能。最终，这些结果验证了所提出的使能架构，并证实了O-RAN在支持V2X通信方面的潜力。