Overview of Indigenous 5G TestbedRohit Budhiraja

Associate ProfessorDepartment of Electrical Engineering

IIT Kanpur India

April 5th, 2021

Development of an Indigenous

End-to-end 5G Test Bed

2@CEWiT, IITB, IITH, IITM, IITK, IITD, IISc, SAMEER

Supported By

Department of TelecommunicationsMinistry of Communications

Government of India

Indigenous 5G Testbed

IIT Madras

IISc IIT Delhi

IIT Kanpur

IIT BombayIIT Hyderabad

Industry Partners

TECHNOLOGY PARTNERS

DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS

@CEWiT, IITB, IITH, IITM, IITK, IITD, IISc, SAMEER 3

Major Goals of 5G testbed• Encourage existing and new telecom product startups in India• Multiply R&D capability to develop 5G solutions for Indian markets

• Hugely enhance capacity in 5G technology skills

• Demonstrate solutions for India• Rural network deployments• Smart city applications

• Increase India’s participation in global forums (3GPP, ITU, IEEE) -present test results for Indian use cases

• Helping government agencies with the correct technical information

4

Test Bed Outcomes and their uses

@CEWiT, IITB, IITH, IITM, IITK, IITD, IISc, SAMEER 5

Hardware and Software IPs(Hardware platforms, Prototypes,

ASICs, Stacks)

Start-ups, SMEs, Tech companies

End to end Test BedIndustry - Start-ups, SMEs,

Technology Institutes - research and teaching

Algorithms & Techniques(Implementation IPs, patents)

R&D organisations, Product Companies, Research teams –

Academia & Industry

Expertise5G Ecosystem in India, especially product and service companies

5G Test Bed Project

Test Bed Locations

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IITM/CEWiT, ChennaiIISc, Bangalore

IITB, Mumbai IITH, Hyderabad

IITD, Delhi

IITK, Kanpur

q 40 Investigators (faculty members/Senior researchers) from 8 institutesq Currently nearly 350 employees working on the testbed

5G testbed architecture overview 7

5GCBackhaul fibre

Fronthaul fibre x3

Cell site 2

Baseband card 4

Baseband card 5

Baseband card 6

UE UE UE

Cell site 3

Fronthaul fibre x3

Baseband card 7

Baseband card 8

Baseband card 9

Cell site 1 Fronthaul fibre x3

UE

UE

Baseband card 1

Baseband card 2

Baseband card 3BBU

RRH+BBU= gNodeB

Summary of major subsystems being developed • Sub 6 GHz full-digital mMIMO remote radio head (RRH)

• 64 Antenna systems (Sub 6 GHz)• Radio, front end

• Integrated mmWave hybrid RRH• Development of hybrid analog/digital architectures• 256 Antenna

• Large number of antennas at the RRH• 5G Base band unit (BBU)

• Supporting lower bands (< 6 GHz) and higher bands (> 6 GHz).• 5G Core Network

• SDN based• Multi-RAT using WiFi etc

• Management layer for test bed management

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9

Need of massive antennas at the RRH (1)

1010

• Large number of antennas help in forming pointed beams towards the users• Reduces inter-cell interference

Need of massive antennas at the RRH (2)

5G testbed work breakup

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CEWiT UE L1/L2/L3, Baseband Algorithms, Core NetworkIIT Bombay Core NetworkIIT Hyderabad NB-IoT ASIC, gNB L1/L2/L3IIT Madras gNB/UE Hardware Platforms, gNB L1, Core NetworkIIT Kanpur gNB BBU Hardware Platform, gNB L1Sameer Antennas, RF modulesIISc Bangalore Baseband Algorithms, gNB L1 (open stack) IoT, LiFiIIT Delhi Baseband Algorithms, LiFi, Security

Remote Radio Head (sub 6 GHz)

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RF Features

• 3.5 GHz• 100 MHz• 64 TRX

• Dual Polarized• 1.5 Watt per Antenna• TDD

Mechanical Features

• IP65• 33 Kg

Fronthaul• e-Cpri (10/25G)

Software• 3GPP (5G NR)• 7.2 split (3GPP)

Designed and built in-house

Remote Radio Head (mmWave)RF Features

• 28 GHz• 400 MHz• 4x 64 element phased

array• TDD

Mechanical Features• IP65• 15 Kg

Fronthaul

• e-CPRI (25G)

Software

• 3GPP (5G NR)• 7.2 split (3GPP)

At IMC

Designed and built in-house

Base Band Unit

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Features

• PCie• Cloud ready• 4.5 Gbps throughput

Form Factor

Like Tesla card (NVidia)

Front HaulLike Tesla card (NVidia)

Software

• 3GPP (5G NR)

L2/L3 Interface

FAPI

15Snapshot of challenges - power delivery

This are the power rails for only one SoC

Total 24 regulators on the board

Each piece of hardwarehas 20-24 power supplies

FPGA_VCCINT àFPGA internal

supplies

FPGA VCCINT_IO power supplies

FPGA1 à DDR4, auxiliary circuits

UTIL1V8, 2V5, 3V3, à SD Card, QSPI, Clocks, SFP, UART

ETH_VCC1V2, 1V5 à Ethernet supplies

User Equipment

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Features

• 2 Antenna• 3.5 GHz/ 28 GHz• 100 MHz/400 MHz• 23 dBm

Labs

• State of the art 5G Labs have been developed across these institutes

• 5G test equipment (sub 6 GHz and Mmwave)

• Requisite Software(s) • Protocol testers

• Open to outside companies*

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Conclusions• 5G Testbed being built from scratch

• Core network• Remote radio head hardware and software

• Sub 6 GHz and mmWave bands• Baseband unit hardware and software• UE hardware and software

• Extreme hardware engineering• Design of 20+ layers of printed circuit boards with 100 Gbps interfaces• 64 RF transceiver sub 6GHz fully-digital hardware• Mmwave hybrid RF transceivers

• .

Thanks