5G wireless networks aim to achieve seamless mobile broadband services,machine to machine and ultra-reliable low latency communications. These goalsrequire massive improvements in terms of capacity, reliability, latencyreduction, and scalability. Besides software defined networks and networkfunction virtualization, self organizing networks (SON) is another enablingtechnology which makes 5G feasible. Automatic neighbor relations (ANR) is aprominent component of SON which has direct impact on reliability, scalability,and capacity of the wireless networks. When the current state ofstandardization and implementation of ANR functionality is considered, it isseen that a new approach is needed for ANR to comply with 5G requirements.Thus, in this paper a comprehensive hybrid ANR (H-ANR) architecture which leadsto the management of relations utilizing an extensive set of universalperformance criteria, configuration metrics, and measurements is proposed. TheH-ANR functionality ranks the neighbors not based on instantaneous informationbut on historic values of the performance criteria and other metrics. Theattributes of distributed ANR (D-ANR) module is also managed by H-ANR toprevent the repetitive addition of unwanted neighbors via D-ANR or X2interface. Performance of the proposed H-ANR functionality is also comparedwith the case when only D-ANR is available on a Long Term Evolution Advancednetwork.
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