An Innovative Smart Collection & Forwarding (SCF) Mechanism to Support Local Breakout Services in O-RAN-Based 5G Non-Public Networks

Inhalt:
In the context of Industry 4.0, 5G private networks are essential to enabling low-latency and highly reliable communication for smart factory applications. However, conventional 5G architectures often rely on centralized user-plane routing through the core network, which increases communication latency— particularly when the core is cloud-deployed. This paper proposes and implements a Smart Collection & Forwarding (SCF) module, designed for integration with the Central Unit (CU) in an O-RAN architecture. The SCF module enables localized user-plane routing by automatically configuring forwarding rules based on control-plane signaling and dynamically triggering Local Breakout (LBO) based on destination IP address monitoring. Unlike conventional designs, the proposed approach does not require additional hardware such as MEC or cloud UPF.Experimental evaluations demonstrate that, compared to traditional Local UPF-based routing, the SCF system reduces round-trip time (RTT) by an average of 2 milliseconds. When compared to cloud-based 5G core deployments, the improvement is even more significant, with an average RTT reduction of up to 167 milliseconds. In addition, SCF supports distributed routing for local traffic, improves handover performance between CUs, and maintains compatibility with standard 3GPP signaling procedures. The proposed SCF-integrated architecture offers a lightweight, hardware-efficient, and low-latency solution for enterprise 5G private networks, making it particularly suitable for real-time industrial automation and smart manufacturing scenarios.