Amarisoft 5G over FR3 in Pi-Radio

Description

This tutorial contains instructions for setting up ​amarisoft 5G NR network using SDRs(USRP N310/USRP 2974) in COSMOS SB1. Amarisoft provides software based gNB, 5GCore (eNB,EPC), and UE simulator that run on commodity off-the-shelf devices. A typical software-based cellular basestation/UE consists of a host PC and an SDR, where host PC is used for processing the baseband signals sent to and received from the SDR. Amarisoft supports various SDRs such as Amarisoft PCIe SDR50, SDR100, and USRPs such as N310, X310, 2974. In this tutorial, we run 5GCore, gNB(SA) on a host server+USRP N310 in COSMOS SB1, and the UE simulator on another host server+USRP 2974. The UE simulator can simulate one or more UEs, enabling experiments with large number of users connected to a base station.

Prerequisites

• COSMOS account and active reservation in Sandbox 1.
• Familiarity with USRP-2974 (embedded X310, 10 MHz–6 GHz, 160 MHz BW).
• FR3 hardware access (2×​Pi-Radio FR3 front-ends) and the 5G-tutorial-cosmos_pi_radio.ndz disk image for the USRPs.

Resources required

• Nodes: sdr1-piradio, sdr2-piradio, rfdev-sdr1-piradio, rfdev-sdr2-piradio.
• Antennas: 2× Vivaldi (Tx/Rx) connected to the Pi-Radio front-ends. (See FR3 hardware pages for antenna layout.)
• Browser access to Pi-Radio web UI on the rfdev-* nodes (port 5006).

Tutorial Setup

Follow the steps below to gain access to the sandbox 1 console and set up nodes with appropriate images.

1. If you don't have one already, sign up for a ​COSMOS account
2. Create a resource reservation on sandbox 1
3. Login into sandbox 1 console (console.sb1.cosmos-lab.org) with two SSH sessions.
4. Make sure all the resources in the domain are turned off:

   omf tell -a offh -t system:topo:allres  
   

   For this tutorial we will be using the SB1 servers, srv1-lg1, srv2-lg1, USRP N310s in large and medium nodes, sdr1-s1-lg1 and sdr1-md1.
5. Load 5G-tutorial-cosmos_pi_radio.ndz on sdr1-piradio,sdr2-piradio nodes.

   omf load -i 5G-tutorial-cosmos_pi_radio.ndz -t sdr1-piradio,sdr2-piradio
   

6. Turn all the required resources (2 USRPs and 2 Pi-Radio SDRs) on and check the status.

   omf tell -a on -t sdr1-piradio,sdr2-piradio,rfdev-sdr1-piradio,rfdev-sdr2-piradio
   

   omf stat -t sdr1-piradio,sdr2-piradio,rfdev-sdr1-piradio,rfdev-sdr2-piradio
   

7. After a minute (giving internal PCs enough time to boot), ssh to the USRP 2974s nodes and start the chrome remote desktop session (follow the instructions for setting remote access).
8. Open a Chrome browser sessions in each of the two CDRs and access the Pi-Radio configuration pages

    https://sdr1-piradio.sb1.cosmos-lab.org:5006
    https://sdr2-piradio.sb2.cosmos-lab.org:5006
   

Experiment Execution

Use the Pi-Radio web UI Frequency panel on both rfdev pages (Tx and Rx) and set:

• Low LO Frequency (GHz): 1.500000
• High LO Frequency (GHz): 10.000000

This example pairs a 1.5 GHz IF with a 10 GHz high-side LO (and a 1.5 GHz low-side LO) to place the RF tone at ~10 GHz, and back to 1.5 GHz on the receive path. (Exact placement depends on mixer sign/paths; the screenshot below shows the working settings used in this demo.) Leave Filters, Gain (except where noted), and LO Suppression at defaults for the first run.

Run MME

• We are going to run the MME, gNodeB on sdr1-piradio and the UE simulator on sdr2-piradio.
• Run the Amarisoft MME on sdr1-piradio. Run lte_init.sh to setup IP forwarding so that the UEs can connect to the Internet, once they establish a connection with the base station. This network uses PLMN 310014 (USA Test network) as configured in mme.cfg.

  root@sdr1-piradio:~# cd /opt/amarisoft/ltemme-linux-2024-09-13
  root@sdr1-piradio:/opt/amarisoft/ltemme-linux-2024-09-13# ./lte_init.sh
  Select eno0 default interface
  Configure NAT for eno0
  net.ipv4.tcp_congestion_control = bbr
  net.core.rmem_max = 50000000
  net.core.wmem_max = 5000000
  root@sdr1-piradio:/opt/amarisoft/ltemme-linux-2024-09-13# ./ltemme config/mme.cfg
  Core Network version 2024-09-13, Copyright (C) 2012-2024 Amarisoft
  This software is licensed to Rutgers University (The State University of New Jersey).
  License server: license.orbit-lab.org (0b-b4-46-dc-2f-83-58-cb)
  Support and software update available until 2025-08-18.
  
  (mme)
  
  

• Type 'help' at the prompt to explore the available mme commands.