Design of Indigenous 5G Testbed

We have build a 5G testbed that incorporates millimeter Wave, massive MIMO and full-duplex technologies. The project is funded by Department of Telecommunications (DOT), Govt. of India. Complete hardware and software has been designed in-house from scratch, and based on our own intellectual property.

• Designed at - IIT Madras, SAMEER Chennai, CEWiT Chennai, IIT Bombay,IIT Kanpur.

• [Status] - Ongoing.

Network architecture of the 5G testbed

• Radio access network consisting of remote radio head, baseband unit and antennas

  • Designed at - IIT Madras, SAMEER Chennai, IIT Kanpur.

• Core network

  • Designed at CEWiT Chennai, IIT Bombay.

Remote radio head (RRH) details

• Completely designed in-house

• Can support 16,32,64 antennas

Baseband unit (BBU)

• Consists of BBU card and an off-the-shelf server

• BBU card is is designed in-house with PCIe form factor

• Communicates with RRH using optical eCPRI link

• Each BBU can support nine different sectors

  • Can support cloud radio access network architecture by communicating with other BBU cards

Core network

Various tasks done in the project

• Overview

• Set-up for testing the hardware being developed

• Snapshot of the BBU card

• BBU card integrated with the server

• Front view of the integrated BBU server unit

• BBU card being tested

• BBU card layout

• Eye diagram of BBU card PCI link

• Testing being done with Xilinx evaluation board

• Soldering station

Visitors in the 5G lab

• Dr Rhode of Rhode and Schwartz

  • Pleasantly surprised to know that the first version of the hardware designed was working

• TRAI chairman Dr. R. S. Sharma