Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems
Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems
Headerbild XG Testbeds, AI-generated: Bildschirm in einem Serverraum mit Diagrammen und Grafiken
© AI generated / Fraunhofer FOKUS

© AI generated / Fraunhofer FOKUS

XG Testbeds

Doing mobile and software-based network research for more than a decade, the NGNI team has worked at every level of the stack and integrated research and customer testbeds around the globe. Our vision is to provide you with a tailored solution for your 5G-related research, development or operation. Our testbed offer starts with simple one cell SDR-based desktop networks for device integration and evaluation and scales to wide area deployments.

Integration of the right component for the right job is one of the aspects that make our testbeds versatile and tailored at the same time.

Components

As researchers we try to get our hands on everything in our field of research. Below is an uncomplete list of components we like to use in our testbeds. We extend this by our own developments and further components tailored to your needs.

  • RAN: Nokia, Huawei, SRSRan, OpenAir Interface, AmariSoft, Bubble RAN, nodeH, Benetel, accelleran
  • 5G Cores: Open5GCore, Open5Gs, Free5GC
  • Compute: Bare metal, Proxmox, VMWare, K8s
  • Monitoring: OMNT, Grafana, Telegraf, InfluxDB, Prometeus, OpenMAEP
  • Benchmarking: iPerf3, TRex, K6

Technologies

Our testbeds are a living and growing environment, always a step ahead of the current 3GPP standards. With our Open5GCore at heart and all technological aspects at our control we can even enable you to evaluate pre-standard features of the next generation of mobile networks. While our 5GCore development team can implement the Core Network features you need, our testbed team makes it work end-to-end. Close partnerships across the whole stack enabling us to offer you literally the future.

Here are some points that currently excite us:

  • ORAN: X/R Apps for deep Insite into the RAN and precise control, e.g., of Handover behavior
  • ORAN: RAN Monitoring on a new level
  • SDRs: RAN as well as UEs in a software defined fashion remove the limits of traditional equipment and offer a new spectrum of customizations

Monitoring and Measurement

Building on top of modern time series databases like InfluxDB, we monitor every aspect of our testbeds. Enabling you to quickly see what is really going on in your testbed. From the switchport over the application runtime deep into the RAN, it's all logged and ready to be evaluated when needed.

With our own developments like our Swiss army knife mobile research tool OMNT – OpenMobileNetworkToolkit and companion tools we close the gap to enable end-to-end network measurements. Integration with different metric and instrumentation tools our testbeds offer a full view of all aspects and KPIs. And of course, we are not stopping at our own tools but can also help with the tools and components you want to be integrated.

Tailored Dashboards bring the aspects you are focused on to your fingertips.

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Mobile Network Lab

The NGNI Mobile Network Lab is a living implementation of the NGNI XG Testbeds development. It is designed to enable us and our partners to do innovative product prototyping, fast integration and testing including calibration, benchmarking and interoperability tests between new prototypes and products. Designed with more than the 5G network itself in mind, the lab offers a fully integrated environment from basic infrastructure like network switching up a multi-vendor RAN integration.

  • The unique combination of FOKUS developed components with marked leading tooling from different vendors and projects enables a zero-preparation test environment where all KPIs are constantly monitored, stored and visualized.
  • End-to-end-tests as well as single component evaluation are made easy and quick. Fast switching of components e. g. RAN, UPF, Core allows verification of interoperability in no time.
  • From bare metal over solid virtualization environments to scalable cloud environments, every deployment flavour is available.
  • Multi-tenant network and compute separation allows a quick and clean switch between projects and measurements.
  • The lab extended from the main lab room, over our data center, our underground parking lot to metro cells on our roof to mimic different HF environments. The lab extends even further to an outdoor test site at an active air field close to Berlin for all the experiments that need more space than a traditional lab can offer.

Nomadic Node – Mobile 5G experimentation lab

Transportanhänger auf dem Flugfeld Schönhagen mit einer 5G Antenne, vergrößert im Anhänger die Box mit dem Nomadic Node von Frauhofer FOKUS
© Fraunhofer FOKUS

Evaluation of 5G technology in different environments and for different use cases is one of our strong suits. While detailed planning and extensive testing in the lab is important, sometimes a field trial is necessary to enable the next step towards great things. New use cases and exiting applications need a testbed that is suited to provide an infrastructure that is not limiting the possibilities. The Nomadic Node combines all this in a mobile lab, ready to be taken even to remote places, and provides there a research lab grade infrastructure and measurement environment. It eliminates the need for long setup days, limited compute or RAN resources or complex work on constantly changing equipment.

  • A portable network can be installed and configured at the specific use case location in a matter of minutes and remain in use for a specific duration of time (such as for fairs, R&D activities, festivals or concrete application scenarios like construction sites)
  • A mobile network can be installed in a mobile vehicle to fulfill the specific mobile communication needs of scenarios like public parades, public health or emergency networks

The nomadic node is specially designed to evaluate the usage of 5G campus networks for:

  • Spectrum usage around the nomadic node (licensed and unlicensed)
  • Connectivity of devices: connecting IoT and communication devices via 5G to an existing infrastructure, e.g., the shop floor
  • Power management: especially the mobile edge network must function with the limited power from the vehicle
  • Local offloading of the communication: providing support for private local communication
  • Backhaul selection between satellite and available terrestrial operators – enabling efficient communication with the central locations and the Internet for data, for control plane as well as for the management of the 5G network
  • Reliable edge communication: applications on the edge server provide reliable operation even on unpredictable backhauls

The Fraunhofer FOKUS Nomadic Node exists already in its 2nd iteration both with metro cells in mind. They offer local edge compute resources as well as virtualization and container infrastructure. Network switching, routing as well as multiple uplink solutions from copper cables over fiber to satellite-based uplinks. As a turn-key-solution the nomadic node is fully integrated in terms of monitoring, end-to-end measurement and instrumentation down to the very depts or our Open5GCore network. This enables researchers, developers and integrators from different fields to work without the need of deep 5G or network knowledge.