Hi everybody. My name is Alexander Patrick Surjono, you all can call me Patrick. I'm from Universitas Indonesia majoring in Computer Engineering batch 2017.
On summer 2020, I took part in TEEP @AsiaPlus 2020 at NTUST's BMW (Broadband Multimedia Wireless) lab. Unlike my seniors, my friends and I did the internship remotely from Indonesia.
I've heard about this TEEP program since I was a sophomore in campus when the 2015 batch had their TEEP experience back in summer 2018. I was intrigued by the opportunity they had, firstly not for any special reasons, rather just because I had visited Taiwan back in 2015 for a music competition. Anyway, going overseas for my studies has also been a dream since high school. I had wished that my batch could also get the same opportunity to go there ever since.
Finally, in the first term of 2019-2020 academic year, it was announced that the TEEP 2020 was opened for registration for 2017 batch students. But then I was distracted by my other activities that the registration date was overdue when I was about to apply. Luckily, I got an info from my lecturers that the application is open again and I can apply via my professor, and then I did.
I contacted Prof. Cheng in circa early February of this year via Prof. Riri to request him whether if I could join the internship program, and he had given me the chance to join and prepare myself. I was assigned to Jonathan's project which is O-RAN (Open Radio Access Network). Jonathan was also my senior in campus.
During the preparation, I was ordered to learn some of the objectives needed for my internship. I learned mostly about the basic of 5G and O-RAN and document my work in HackMD. I also reported if I had finished my task on Trello and noted the HackMD link there.
When the global pandemic of COVID-19 began, it was announced in March that the TEEP program was cancelled. My lecturers then proposed to Prof. Cheng to have a remote internship. Some of my friends and I agreed to have take the internship remotely. Hence, the Remote TEEP @AsiaPlus 2020 came into place.
We started our first meeting on 1st of August 2020. Prof. Cheng gave us a brief introduction to how the remote intern is going to be. I was introduced to create a checklist and daily report in HackMD to maintain and record my works. We also had to check in and check out via Trello.
We had a weekly meeting every Wednesday. We presented to our friends our progress from the past week. Our presentation files were also documented in HackMD, therefore everyone else can also learn and share each other's topics.
At the end of the intern, I was told to make a final paper describing the outline of my topic during this intern. I was taught to generate my final paper using LaTex via Overleaf which was also a new experience for me. It was apparently much easier to create a paper that way rather than the conventional way.
My topic of this intern was O-RAN. I focused on O-DU High. I discovered about O-DU High as one of a component in O-RAN architecture. I focused in O-DU High as one of the E2 nodes that is connected to the Near-RT RIC by the E2 interface. I learned about the process of E2AP procedures such as E2 Setup, RIC Subscription, and RIC Indication. I analyzed the process by looking at each of the source code and functions related to those procedures, and by reviewing a video of running the procedure using a script file.
In conclusion, I have gained some new experience during this internship. I am grateful that I was a part of it. I'd like to thank you for everybody who had supported me and helped me during this internship.
I wish everybody a success, and good luck.
Patrick