Lab Layout


The TurboRAN testbed will be built to incorporate the unique features needed to enable novel research in such areas including:

1) Real cellular deployment to capture real propagation and interference characteristics in a multicell, multi-user environment;
2) Tri-tier network with an ultra-dense layer of small cells under-laying macro/micro cells to enable research on a range of P-SON use cases aimed at ultra-dense heterogeneous networks;
3) Multi-input multi-output (MIMO) support on most APs for testing beamforming, coverage adaptation, multi-user MIMO, and network MIMO scenarios;
4) mmWave-based small cells under-laying the micro cells to test proposed 5G cellular network architectures;
5) A tier of mobile Nano cells in a dedicated 7500 sq. ft. indoor lab to enable research on networks that will feature future mobile access points (e.g., drones, vehicles);
6) Programmable real user devices, that can be configured to report real-time measurements about key performance indicators of network that trigger the P-SON functions;
7) Very large number of virtual users to emulate congestion and various IoT scenarios;
8) 3D mobility enabled by unmanned ground and aerial vehicles (UGV and UAV) with precise control and knowledge of user location and speed;
9) Real programmable Evolved Packet Core (EPC) as well as a commercial EPC. In emerging all IP cellular networks mobility management has become deep-rooted in EPC. Hence, a testbed that is solely RAN based is unable to support experiments on mobility related P-SON use cases;
10) End-to-end programmability, particularly high degree of adaptability in RAN (e.g., ability to dynamically change cell configuration parameters, mobility management parameters, cells selection and reselection parameters, admission control parameters, cell individual offsets (CIOs), coverage footprints, frequency reuse, and scheduling schemes, to name just a few);
11) Integrated CU-data processing capability to develop and evaluate P-SON solutions by leveraging recent advancements in data analytics and machine learning tools. Thus, TurboRAN will be the first testbed to incorporate these unique features required for researching P-SON, Control Data Split Architecture (CDSA), and the databased-aided variant of CDSA (D-MUD).

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