Demo Site - Portugal
A commercial standalone 5G network with multi-location radio units, and a mobility testbed featuring 24 fixed and one high-speed mobile node.
The experimental facility provided to EXIGENCE by Instituto de Telecomunicações (ITAV) in Aveiro, Portugal, offers a sophisticated platform that transcends simple equipment aggregation. This advanced infrastructure creates a realistic, city-wide environment for the development, integration, and testing of cutting-edge 5G and beyond technologies. It achieves this by seamlessly integrating research-grade and commercial solutions with open lab spaces. The geographically distributed infrastructure features diverse indoor and outdoor 5G New Radio (NR) deployments, underpinned by a variety of 5G Core and Edge Computing systems, effectively simulating a real-world urban network.
Beyond its robust wireless communication infrastructure, the facility incorporates a wide array of connected devices, including CCTV cameras, user equipment, and IoT devices, enabling comprehensive validation of mobile networking technologies. This resource diversity, which spans varying levels of technological readiness and customisation across multiple organisations, provides an ideal setting for developing multi-domain, multi-technology solutions. The platform supports the entire innovation lifecycle, from initial conceptualisation and prototyping to final validation, ensuring that technologies are rigorously tested within a realistic and diverse environment.
Aveiro, Portugal
Partner involved
Key Features
Radio Infrastructure
The carrier-grade 5G RAN infrastructure supports multiple 5G NR sites configured in the n78 frequency band, utilising TDD transmission with a center frequency of 3790 MHz and a 20 MHz bandwidth. Indoor sites are located within ITAV’s premises and include indoor antennas, BBUs, and RHUBs, which manage their interconnection. Outdoor sites are deployed across industrial areas and feature dedicated antennas, BBUs, and RHUBs. A notable outdoor site, situated 6 km from the university campus, includes three AAU 5649 antennas mounted on a tower at Aveiro’s seaport, connected to a BBU5900 and linked to the 5GC via a public L2 service. Additionally, a portable site, using a BBU5900, RHUB 5963, and pRRU 5961 antenna, enables flexible deployment in various locations. This portable setup is compatible with an open-source core, providing a cost-effective solution for temporary or mobile connectivity while seamlessly integrating with existing networks. Furthermore, ITAV utilises several URSP software-defined radios to facilitate the implementation of novel radio-level mobile technologies.
Core Network
The carrier-grade core network features a Release 16 5G SA Core (with selected Release 17 functionalities), offering functions such as AMF, SMF, AUSF, NSSF, NRF, UDM, and UPF. Custom network slices can be created to meet specific performance requirements, and dynamic slicing capabilities allow for runtime adjustments without disrupting device communication. The facility also supports open-source mobile network cores, including Open5GS, Free5GCore, and OAI. These cores implement key components aligned with 3GPP Release 17 standards.
Control, Management, and Orchestration Platforms
Resources like RAN, Core, Edge, and Cloud are managed using different platforms. The commercial-grade 5G infrastructure (5GC, 5G NR, and 5G MEC) is monitored through the eSight platform and a Mobile Automation Engine (MAE) solution. Open Source MANO (OSM) plays a key role in orchestrating services, handling requests from systems such as service orchestration, OSS/BSS, and portals, and executing them on the available NFVI resources.
Compute Infrastructure
ITAV features a datacenter with two different hypervisor clusters, one based on Openstack and the other based on Proxmox. It provides an ample setting with an extensive amount of resources supporting the deployment of components for experiments, using different hardware architectures as well, in order to optimally support different types of utilisations. The platform is always evolving, but as of this date it is composed by:
- x86: 31 servers, 600 cores, 1.5THz clock, 7.4TB RAM, 74TB Storage
- ARM: 4 servers, 432 cores, 1THz clock, 1.4TB RAM, 10TB Storage
- GPU: 7 x Nvidia RTX-A4000 ada + 1 x Nvidia RTX 2080
All elements are interconnected with, at least, 10GBps links, and the platform features both storage and site replication backups.
Security Architecture
The facility incorporates a robust security architecture based on best practices and recommended mechanisms, including physical access controls, firewalls, and isolated VPNs for management and service planes. Connectivity to external sites is secured via encrypted VPNs with stringent access and integrity controls. SIM management and configuration are handled for mobile devices, with APN and TAI utilized for UL CL.
