The Open6G Open Testing and Integration Center (OTIC) is a hub for developing and testing next-generation wireless networks based on Open RAN. The OTIC was approved by the O-RAN Alliance as North American OTIC in the Boston Area (Northeastern University) in May 2023.
The Open6G OTIC provides testing services for Open RAN products, including compliance, interoperability, performance, and functional testing against multiple state-of-the-art environments – from real 5G RANs to emulated networks in Colosseum and RAN/RIC emulators.
Innovation with open and programmable RAN, RIC, SMO, and base stations transforms telecommunications, enabling dynamic resource allocation and superior service delivery.
Certification, verification, and interoperability are essential for reliable and quality systems, ensuring seamless integration across platforms and guaranteeing performance in our interconnected world.
System design optimizes operations, deployment brings plans to fruition, and customer support ensures seamless functionality, driving business success through reliable technology solutions.
END-TO-END FULL STACK OTIC
We test full protocol stack/interfaces in both emulated and real-world environments. This ensures thorough evaluation and validation of Open RAN solutions across diverse scenarios guaranteeing robust performance and interoperability in varying deployment conditions.
OPEN RAN DIGITAL TWIN
We utilize Digital Twinning for virtualized testing, accurately emulating real-world scenarios with high fidelity. Testing extends to both outdoor and indoor environments, ensuring compliance with FCC Innovation Zone frequencies and facilitating multi-vendor interoperability, thereby enhancing the reliability and efficiency of Open RAN deployments.
INTEROPERABLE AI-DRIVEN NETWORKS
We focus on enabling interoperability between control and inference networks through AI. We ensure this by testing RICs across emulated and real-world testbeds, ensuring reproducibility and practicality, while evaluating interoperability at various layers of the stack.
ENERGY EFFICIENT NETWORKS
We prioritize energy efficiency in Open RAN deployments, going beyond traditional hardware testing to also evaluate the energy efficiency of software stacks. This comprehensive approach ensures that both hardware and software components contribute to sustainable and efficient network operations.
The new Open6G OTIC provides testing capabilities for the validation of end-to-end control logic; AI and machine learning (ML) solutions for the design, development, and operations of open and programmable cellular networks; and interoperability and performance testing across heterogeneous vendors and network components. The OTIC adopts a system-level approach, providing testing devices and services that can be used to validate disaggregated base stations, RAN Intelligent Controllers (RICs), including custom applications (i.e., xApps and rApps). These can be tested them against different kinds of RAN implementations (including commercial and software-defined products), in emulated or over-the-air environments.
Colosseum, the world’s largest wireless network emulator with hardware-in-the-loop, with 256 software-defined radios, more than 20 racks of compute, with programmable GPUs, FPGAs, and components to orchestrate and manage a multi-tenant experimental environment.
Colosseum is already being used by more than 77 teams from different research institutions, and has already been successfully used to demonstrate closed-loop control for O-RAN. More info>>
The OpenRAN Gym framework, a large-scale data collection for the training of AI/ML, hosts multiple 5G protocol stacks for RAN and core and tests a mix of commercial radios and emulated devices. More info>>
Multiple 5G RAN deployments and equipment, including softwarized and commercial RAN products, 5G UEs, core networks, a programmable 5G and O-RAN testbed with 10+ gNodeBs on the indoor Arena testbed, and testing equipment.
One of the four FCC Innovation Zone frameworks in the nation, which allows the lab to quickly obtain experimental licenses for over-the-air testing in the Northeastern University Innovation Campus in Burlington, MA, and in the main Boston, MA campus.
An outdoor UAV testing facility to profile use cases related to drone mobility and a large anechoic chamber to test radio devices in an interference-free environment. More info>>
The OTIC is hosted in the Northeastern WIoT Open6G facilities, which includes an open space with 4600 square feet of collaboration and experimental space, a conference room, a dedicated office, a storage room, and a data center room with dedicated cooling, power supply, and networking infrastructure. In addition to this indoor space, we provide access to an outdoor UAV flying cage and an indoor anechoic chamber in the same campus.
System-level testing and interoperability for end-to-end Open RAN system with physical and remote access
Integration of commercial hardware and software on top of state-of-the-art experimental facilities for emulation testing
Security, privacy, ease of deployment, and realistic, complex testing environments.
Over-the-air and emulated wireless environments testing.
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