X5G comprises an open, programmable, and multi-vendor private 5G O-RAN testbed deployed at Northeastern University, in Boston, MA. It features an 8-node network deployment of the NVIDIA Aerial RAN CoLab Over-The-Air (ARC-OTA), with OpenAirInterface for the higher layers, the NVIDIA Aerial Software Development Kit (SDK) for the High-PHY layer, accelerated on GPUs, and Radio Units (RUs) manufactured by various vendors, including Foxconn. Additionally, X5G includes the O-RAN Software Community (OSC) Near-RT RIC deployed on an OpenShift cluster and integrated with an E2 agent in OAI. It serves as a platform for research and experimentation in next-generation wireless networks, facilitating tests with Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) User Equipment (UEs) devices, such as OnePlus, iPhone and Pixel phones, and suporting applications like iPerf and video streaming. An overview of the components of the X5G platform is shown in the picture below which includes: the X5G Radio Access Network (RAN) with NVIDIA Aerial and OAI; various Core Networks, including OAI and Open5GS; and a backbone OpenShift infrastructure that hosts the RIC components and automates the RAN functions.

If you use X5G for your research, please reference the following paper:

D. Villa, I. Khan, F. Kaltenberger, N. Hedberg, R. Soares da Silva, A. Kelkar, C. Dick, S. Basagni, J. M. Jornet, T. Melodia, M. Polese, and D. Koutsonikolas, "An Open, Programmable, Multi-vendor 5G O-RAN Testbed with NVIDIA ARC and OpenAirInterface," in Proceedings of the 2nd IEEE Workshop on Next-generation Open and Programmable Radio Access Networks (NG-OPERA), Vancouver, BC, Canada, May 2024. [pdf] [bibtex]

For more details about this platform, visit the X5G webpage.