Real-world testing of new ideas developed across all layers of the cellular stack is a daunting task, especially in academia. The cost of both hardware and software, alongside the fact that cellular licensing prevent researchers from modifying the source code, has historically represented an unsurmountable barrier toward deploying full-fledged programmable cellular networks in a university lab. Thankfully, in recent years, open source 4G/5G implementations have started appearing. The most widely adopted stacks are Open Air Interface (OAI) and Software Radio Systems RAN (srsRAN). A key feature of this software is that it runs on general-purpose x86 computing hardware and low-cost COTS software-defined radio (SDR) cards such as the USRPs.

We have recently developed an end-to-end programmable 5G testbed that is based on OAI. The 5G RAN components are compiled on the host machine, whereas the 5G Core (5GC) is loaded on the same machine via docker images, which jointly verify, authenticate, and subscribe each OAI device, as shown in the image below. Once connected to 5G, the user will be able to communicate with any servers connected to the external data network.

In the example depicted below, we deployed a powerful inference server on the same dedicated network as the 5GC, thus mimicking the performance of a 5G edge server.

The system comprises the following hardware:

• USRP N310 + Proxicast 4G/5G Aerial Antennas (gNodeB radio unit)
• High Performance Computing (HPC) server Gigabyte G221-Z30 + Xilinx T1/T2 for FPGA-based acceleration of L1 and fronthaul (gNodeB baseband unit + 5GC)
• Google Pixel 5A 5G with Open Cell SIM card programmed to work with OAI (UE)
• Dell Precision 7920 Rack Chassis with 3x NVIDIA RTX A6000 (inference server)

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