OpenAirInterface: Open-source software radio solutions for 5G

LTE 4G cellular networks are gradually being adopted by all major operators in the world and are expected to rule the cellular landscape at least for the current decade. They will also form the starting point for further progress beyond the current generation of mobile cellular networks to chalk a path towards fifth generation mobile networks. Several new approaches and technologies are being considered as potential elements making up such a future mobile network, including cloudification of radio network, radio network programability and APIs following SDN principles, native support of machinetype communication, and massive MIMO. Research on these technologies requires realistic and flexible experimentation platforms that offer a wide range of experimentation modes from real-world experimentation to controlled and scalable evaluations while at the same time retaining backward compatibility with current generation systems. In this work, we present OpenAirInterface (OAI) as a suitably flexible platform towards open LTE ecosystem and playground. We will demonstrate an example of the use of OAI to deploy a low-cost open LTE network using commodity hardware with standard LTE-compatible devices. We will further show the feasibility of using OpenAirInterface to implement some features of 5G, such as cloud-RAN centralized processing, massive MIMO, and alternative waveforms for low-latency communications.