UNITY-6G project partners George Levis and Sotirios Spantideas of Four Dot Infinity (FDI) have co-authored a research paper titled “SLEEPY-rApp: Delay-aware Sleep Scheduling for Energy Efficiency in MEC-enabled O-RAN” together with Anastasios Giannopoulos and Panagiotis Trakadas of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA). The paper was published in the proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on MetaOS for the Cloud-Edge-IoT Continuum, highlighting ongoing efforts to advance intelligent orchestration and energy-efficient management in next-generation networks.
About this research
Recent advances in wireless networks have enabled the rise of Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) architectures, designed to improve flexibility, scalability, and interoperability through modular, open interfaces. In this new paradigm, Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) servers play a key role by hosting latency-sensitive applications close to end users. However, managing these distributed computing resources efficiently remains a major challenge.
To address this, the authors propose SLEEPY-rApp, an intelligent orchestration application operating at the Service Management and Orchestration (SMO) layer. The framework dynamically manages MEC server activation and request routing, balancing energy efficiency with performance needs.
Key contributions of the study include:
- A comprehensive system model capturing distributed MEC management in O-RAN environments.
- A delay-aware orchestration strategy that meets stringent performance requirements in multi-vendor deployments.
- Simulation results demonstrating the method’s adaptability to real-world network conditions and its potential for significant energy savings.
The research demonstrates that the SLEEPY-rApp approach can yield up to 36.7% energy reduction during peak hours, without compromising latency or service quality. This confirms the strong potential of intelligent orchestration in improving the sustainability and efficiency of MEC-enabled O-RAN networks.
Abstract—This paper presents a novel resource allocation and MEC server deactivation strategy for MEC-enabled O-RAN networks, with the objective of optimizing energy consumption while satisfying strict delay requirements. Our approach leverages an intelligent orchestration application, SLEEPY-rApp, deployed in the SMO layer to dynamically control MEC server activation and request routing. We formulate a joint optimization problem that simultaneously considers computing capacity, end-to-end delay, and energy consumption. To address the NP-hard nature of this problem in real time, we propose a low-complexity heuristic that adapts to varying network conditions and workload patterns. Simulation results indicate that our method significantly reduces energy usage—particularly during peak operating periods—while maintaining the required quality of service. These findings underscore the potential of intelligent orchestration in enhancing the energy efficiency of future MEC-enabled O-RAN systems.
Read the full paper to learn more about how SLEEPY-rApp advances energy-efficient orchestration in next-generation O-RAN systems.
