April 23, 2024
Driving Industry 4.0 Forward : Leveraging the Power of 5G Connectivity
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Open Air Interface (OAI) is the world’s 1st 4G & 5G open source community. It was launched by Eurecom* 20 years ago as part of research missions.
It has been managed since 2014 by the OAI Software Alliance (OSA), a non-profit organization, responsible for the development roadmap.
We’re happy to announce that Firecell is joining OAI, not only as a strategic member, but also as a strong contributor to the open source software. Find out more details below.
OAI is the pillar of open source 4G and 5G software, and as an open source private networks provider, Firecell wants to be at the forefront of the movement.
Firecell’s founder and CEO, Claude Seyrat, is now a board member of the alliance, and Firecell is participating in strategic decisions regarding the OAI roadmap, in addition to brainstorming new projects and launching them with the alliance board members.
> What is it for?
One of this integration’s objectives is to introduce Virtual Time management in the source code, rather than having to deal with the Real Time latency. This improvement enables users to run the system even in an environment with limited computational resources. This also makes test results more systematic, thus making it possible for any contributor to the open source code, to validate the end-to-end system without constraints caused by environmental performance.
> How does it work?
Firecell is developing with support of the OSA, a RAN simulation software called “OAI4Test”, based on Open Air Interface. The framework enables UE vendors to run protocol validation tests like the one defined in 3GPP by RAN5.
This project is divided into 3 Phases, first for 4G implementation, then 5G SA implementation and lastly for 5G NSA.
4G LTE eNB features will be finalized in Q2 of 2022, this will include DRB port support, data plane test support, virtual time synchronization between eNB, TTCN framework, as well as the introduction of a new Log framework (LTTng) enabling the aggregation of logs from multiple components of the system.
5G SA gNB features are to be expected in Q4 of 2022, that will contain the initial setup with the L2-Simulator, the SRB port support till RRC connection setup is complete, virtual time support on the 5G gNB stack, porting and 4G LTE SYS (System Simulator) features to 5G-SA.
5G NSA support for SYS will be introduced in Q2 of 2023.
Firecell’s second contribution to OAI: LTTng logging system
> What is it for?
As part of the 4G LTE eNB features mentioned earlier in the article, Firecell is partnering up with Sequans and has selected the solution LTTng to answer the following needs for OAI:
• Single point of collection for log of multiple modules.
• Simple Configuration Management, via remote APIs.
• Exhaustive Log information for debug purposes.
• Activation/DeActivation on run time.
• Common format between UE/SS/TTCN.
> How does it work?
LTTng is an open source software toolkit that you can use to trace the Linux kernel, user applications, and user libraries at the same time.
LTTng consists of Kernel modules to trace the Linux kernel, shared libraries to trace C/C++ user applications, java packages to trace Java applications, a python package to trace Python applications which use the standard logging package, a kernel module to trace shell scripts and other user applications without dedicated instrumentation mechanism, and finally, a Daemons and a command-line tool, lttng, to control the LTTng tracers.
The Firecell team is looking forward to the collaboration with OAI on these projects and others to come. These integrations and strategies will help make this open source initiative in the telecom industry stronger than ever before.
Stay informed on this collaboration by following our LinkedIn page.
