Thirty-seven nodes are available in R2lab to provide a modern testbed infra structure. The nodes are distributed in a grid layout and are customizable, allowing great variety of experimentation scenarios.

Full control and access to bare metal
The nodes are totally open and users can install any software stack they need

The testbed is yours

The testbed is reservable as a whole. Once they have booked the testbed, registered users can ssh into faraday.inria.fr, and from there control all the resources in the testbed. You are thus in full control of all the radio traffic in the chamber.

The nodes are yours

Also you can load your operating system of choice on any node. From that point you can ssh-access all nodes with administration privileges, and configure the available resources - nodes, SDRs and phones - to create a rich experimental environment.

Methodology

Experimental scenarios can be created using standard tools. We also provide tutorials, and python libraries that can optionnally help you efficiently orchestrate the complete experimental workflow, from deployment to data collection.

5G Phones

The testbed offers a couple of commercial smartphones right inside the chamber:

• HUAWEI P40 Pro attached to macphone1, with SIM IMSI: <001010000000001>
  (called phone1)

• Google Pixel 7 attached to macphone2, with SIM IMSI: <001010000000002>
  (called phone2)

Note that:

• Each phone is reachable through a Mac (that also sits in the room) that has its wireless card physically disabled, and that has a USB cable to the phone.
• The mac can be reached from the gateway as e.g., ssh tester@macphone1
  (or the macphone1 convenience shell shortcut)
• Once logged in the Mac you can use convenience helpers to manage the phone
  (type help for details), or use adb manually.
• The mac can also be managed using apple screen sharing tools (VNC-compliant),
  pointing directly at faraday-macphone1.inria.fr
• You will find more details about controlling the phone in the tutorials section.

USRP devices

Some nodes are equipped with USRP devices from ETTUS to run SDR-based experiments such as spectrum analyzer or 4G/5G OpenAirInterface scenarios. All these devices can be remotely-controlled through the ust/uon/uoff utilities.

Currently, our deployment features the following types of USRP devices :

• USRP B210,
• USRP B205mini,
• USRP N210,
• USRP 2, and
• USRP 1 (see detailed mapping in the table below).

Make sure to read the additional notes below that cover some specifics of these devices.

Also, two more powerful USRP devices are currently available:

• USRP N320
• USRP N300
  Each one is connected through 2x10Gbps SFP+ fibers to our SophiaNode cluster. The oai5g-rru scripts demonstrate how to use those devices (e.g. using -R N300 option) to set up a 5G demo with OAI5G microfunctions on R2lab.

Important notes on SDR devices

Please note the following specifics about the additional SDR devices:

• the following table shows in the sdr columns the type of the attached SDR or none if none is installed.

• Depending on the SDR device, one or two Rx/Tx channels may be available. The antennas attached to each channel are specified as follows: 900M for omni-directional 5dBi antennas, operating on 800-900MHz; 2-5G for dual-band 5dBi omni-directional antennas, operating on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz; and Dup-eNB or Dup-UE if a duplexer is used.

• Warning: the N210 and usrp2 models use an Ethernet connection to link to the node. This means that on those nodes, the data wired interface is not available, as the hardware interface is wired into the USRP device.

Duplexers

Some USRP devices, like the B210, have their Tx and Rx SMA connectors very close to one another. For that reason some have a device named a duplexer band 7 [specs] [pict].

The settings used in our deployed duplexers match the frequencies used in our default configuration for OpenAirInterface. That is to say, it is assumed that

• Downlink (eNB to UE) uses frequency 2.66 GHz (duplexers are set to the 2.62-2.69 GHz range)
• Uplink (UE to eNB) uses frequency 2.54 GHz (duplexers are set to the 2.50-2.57 GHz range)

In the sdr antennas column below, devices are tagged as either none, Dup-UE or Dup-eNB.

With the above assumptions, these tags can be interpreted as follows:

• none: no duplexer is attached
• Dup-UE: to transmits on the uplink and receive on the downlink; hence typically this setup can be used to scramble the uplink
• Dup-eNB: conversely, this node is fit to scramble the downlink

Lime SDR devices

Here are the detailed specifications for the LimeSDR devices deployed in the chamber (see table below for the details on which nodes host such devices)

• RF Transceiver: Lime Microsystems LMS7002M MIMO FPRF (Datasheet)
• FPGA: Altera Cyclone IV EP4CE40F23 - also compatible with EP4CE30F23
• Memory: 256 MBytes DDR2 SDRAM
• Oscillator: Rakon RPT7050A @30.72MHz (Datasheet)
• Continuous frequency range: 100 kHz – 3.8 GHz
• Bandwidth: 61.44 MHz
• RF connection: 10 U.FL connectors (6 RX, 4 TX)
• Power Output (CW): up to 10 dBm
• Multiplexing: 2x2 MIMO
• Dimensions: 100 mm x 60 mm
• Plus: "What makes LimeSDR interesting is that it is using Snappy Ubuntu Core as a sort of app store. Developers can make code available, and end-users can easily download and install that code."

AW2S 5G Remote Radio Heads (RRH) / Remote Radio Units (RRUs)

Two 5G RUs are available:

• JAGUAR 2T2R RUs (CPRI Split 8), IBUmax 50MHz, MIMO 2x2
• PANTHER 4T4R RUs (CPRI Split 8), IBUmax 100MHz, MIMO 4x4

As for USRP N3XX devices, each AW2S RU is connected through either 2x10Gbps or 2x25Gbps fibers to our SophiaNode cluster. The same oai5g-rru scripts can be used with e.g., -R jaguar option to demonstrate how to use a AW2S RU to set up a 5G demo using OAI5G microfunctions on R2lab.

Note that the N300 USRP device and the JAGUAR RU are connected to HUBER+SUHNER SENCITY® OCCHIO MIMO 2x2 5G omnidirectional antennas, while the N320 USRP device and the PANTHER RU use HUBER+SUHNER SENCITY® OCCHIO MIMO 4x4 5G omnidirectional antennas.

Huawei LTE Stick

The testbed currently includes 1 Huawei LTE stick:

• One Huawei E3372 sticks on node fit26
  (with SIM IMSI <208950000000015>).

Bluetooth 4.2/5.0 Low Energy (BLE) devices

• Two RedBearLab BLE Nano Kit v2 devicess on nodes fit01 anf fit03, loaned by Eurecom.

5G Quectel RM 500Q-GL modules connected via USB3 to fit nodes

The testbed includes six 5G modules with M.2 to USB3.0 adapter enclosure for Quectel RM 500Q-GL modules using specific kits (composed of M.2/USB3 interface and 4 antennas):

• One attached to fit07 with SIM IMSI: <001010000000003>
• One attached to fit09 with SIM IMSI: <001010000000004>
• One attached to fit18 with SIM IMSI: <001010000000005>
• One attached to fit31 with SIM IMSI: <208950000000010>
• One attached to fit32 with SIM IMSI: <208950000000011>
• One attached to fit34 with SIM IMSI: <208950000000009>

Raspberry Pi4 with 5G Quectel RM 500Q-GL

The testbed includes three other 5G modules composed of a Raspberry Pi4 device with a hat used to connect a Quectel RM 500Q-GL module using specific kits (composed of M.2/USB3 interface and 4 antennas):

• qhat01 with SIM IMSI: <001010000000006>
• qhat02 with SIM IMSI: <001010000000007>
• qhat03 with SIM IMSI: <001010000000008>

Those three Raspberry Pi4 devices are also connected via Ethernet port to the control wired interface.