Running OAI 5G Softmodems

This document explains some options for running 5G executables.

After you have built the softmodem executables you can set your default directory to the build directory cmake_targets/ran_build/build/ and start testing some use cases. Below, the description of the different OAI functionalities should help you choose the OAI configuration that suits your need.

[[TOC]]

Simulators

RFsimulator

The RFsimulator is an OAI device replacing the radio heads (for example the USRP device). It allows connecting the oai UE (LTE or 5G) and respectively the oai eNodeB or gNodeB through a network interface carrying the time-domain samples, getting rid of over the air unpredictable perturbations. This is the ideal tool to check signal processing algorithms and protocols implementation. The RFsimulator has some preliminary support for channel modeling.

It is planned to enhance this simulator with the following functionalities:

Support for multiple eNodeB's or gNodeB's for hand-over tests

This is an easy use-case to setup and test, as no specific hardware is required. The rfsimulator page contains the detailed documentation.

L2 nFAPI Simulator

This simulator connects an eNodeB and UEs through an nFAPI interface, short-cutting the L1 layer. The objective of this simulator is to allow multi UEs simulation, with a large number of UEs (ideally up to 255).

As for the RFsimulator, no specific hardware is required. The L2 nfapi simulator page contains the detailed documentation.

Running with a true radio head

OAI supports different radio heads, the following are tested in the CI:

Monolithic eNodeB where the whole signal processing is performed in a single process
IF4P5 mode, where frequency domain samples are carried over ethernet, from the RRU which implement part of L1(FFT,IFFT,part of PRACH), to a RAU
Monolithic gNodeB: see next section, or the standalone tutorial

5G NR

NSA setup with COTS UE

This setup requires an EPC, an OAI eNB and gNB, and a COTS Phone. A dedicated page describe the setup can be found here. The --nsa flag must be used to run gNB in non-standalone mode.

Launch eNB

sudo ./lte-softmodem -O ../../../targets/PROJECTS/GENERIC-LTE-EPC/CONF/enb.band7.tm1.50prb.usrpb210.conf

Launch gNB

sudo ./nr-softmodem -O ../../../targets/PROJECTS/GENERIC-LTE-EPC/CONF/gnb.band78.tm1.106PRB.usrpn300.conf --nsa

You should see the X2 messages in Wireshark and at the eNB.

SA setup with OAI NR-UE

The standalone mode is the default mode.

Before tag 2024.w45, the default mode was NSA. Thus, in the past, to run either the gNB or the UE in standalone mode, it was necessary to provide the --sa flag in the command line. This is not necessary anymore; if in doubt, you can provide --sa on the command line. The gNB will ignore this option if not relevant; the UE might complain that it does not know this option, which means that standalone is already active.

The default (SA) mode does the following:

At the gNB:

The RRC encodes SIB1 according to the configuration file and transmits it through NR-BCCH-DL-SCH.

At the UE:

Decode SIB1 and starts the 5G NR Initial Access Procedure for SA:
1. 5G-NR RRC Connection Setup
2. NAS Authentication and Security
3. 5G-NR AS Security Procedure
4. 5G-NR RRC Reconfiguration
5. Start Downlink and Uplink Data Transfer

Command line parameters for UE in standalone mode:

-C : downlink carrier frequency in Hz (default value 0)
--CO : uplink frequency offset for FDD in Hz (default value 0)
--numerology : numerology index (default value 1)
-r : bandwidth in terms of RBs (default value 106)
--band : NR band number (default value 78)
--ssb : SSB start subcarrier (default value 516)

To simplify the configuration for the user testing OAI UE with OAI gNB, the latter prints the following LOG that guides the user to correctly set some of the UE command line parameters:

[PHY]   Command line parameters for OAI UE: -C 3319680000 -r 106 --numerology 1 --ssb 516

You can run this, using USRPs, on two separate machines:

sudo ./nr-softmodem -O ../../../targets/PROJECTS/GENERIC-NR-5GC/CONF/gnb.sa.band78.fr1.106PRB.usrpb210.conf --gNBs.[0].min_rxtxtime 6
sudo ./nr-uesoftmodem -r 106 --numerology 1 --band 78 -C 3619200000 --ssb 516

With the RFsimulator (on the same machine), just add the option --rfsim to both gNB and NR UE command lines.

UE capabilities can be passed according to the UE Capabilities section.

A detailed tutorial is provided at this page NR_SA_Tutorial_OAI_nrUE.md.

Optional NR-UE command line options

Here are some useful command line options for the NR UE:

Parameter	Description
`--ue-scan-carrier`	Scan for cells in current bandwidth. This option can be used if the SSB position of the gNB is unknown. If multiple cells are detected, the UE will try to connect to the first cell. By default, this option is disabled and the UE attempts to only decode SSB given by `--ssb`.
`--ue-fo-compensation`	Enables the frequency offset compensation at the UE. Useful when running over the air and/or without an external clock/time source.
`--usrp-args`	Equivalent to the `sdr_addrs` field in the gNB config file. Used to identify the USRP and set some basic parameters (like the clock source).
`--clock-source`	Sets the clock source (internal or external).
`--time-source`	Sets the time source (internal or external).

You can view all available options by typing:

./nr-uesoftmodem --help

Common gNB and NR UE command line options

Three-quarter sampling

The command line option -E can be used to enable three-quarter sampling for split 8 sample rate. Required for certain radios (e.g., 40MHz with B210). If used on the gNB, it is a good idea to use for the UE as well (and vice versa).

UE Capabilities

The --uecap_file option can be used to pass the UE Capabilities input file (path location + filename), e.g.--uecap_file ../../../targets/PROJECTS/GENERIC-NR-5GC/CONF/uecap_ports1.xml for 1 layer or e.g. --uecap_file ../../../targets/PROJECTS/GENERIC-NR-5GC/CONF/uecap_ports2.xml for 2 layers.

This option is available for the following combinations of operation modes and gNB/nrUE softmodems:

Mode	Executable	Description
SA	nr-uesoftmodem	Send UE capabilities from the UE to the gNB via RRC
phy-test	nr-softmodem	Mimic the reception of UE capabilities by the gNB
do-ra	nr-softmodem	Mimic the reception of UE capabilities by the gNB

e.g.

sudo ./nr-uesoftmodem -r 106 --numerology 1 --band 78 -C 3319680000 --ue-nb-ant-tx 2 --ue-nb-ant-rx 2 --uecap_file /opt/oai-nr-ue/etc/uecap.xml

How to run a NTN configuration

NTN channel

A 5G NR NTN configuration only works in a non-terrestrial setup. Therefore either SDR boards and a dedicated NTN channel emulator are required, or RFsimulator has to be configured to simulate a NTN channel.

As shown on the rfsimulator page, RFsimulator provides different possibilities. E.g. to perform a simple simulation of a satellite in geostationary orbit (GEO), these parameters should be added to both gNB and UE command lines:

--rfsimulator.prop_delay 238.74

For simulation of a satellite in low earth orbit (LEO), two channel models have been added to rfsimulator:

SAT_LEO_TRANS: transparent LEO satellite with gNB on ground
SAT_LEO_REGEN: regenerative LEO satellite with gNB on board

Both channel models simulate the delay and Doppler for a circular orbit at 600 km height according to the Matlab function dopplerShiftCircularOrbit. An example configuration to simulate a transparent LEO satellite with rfsimulator would be:

channelmod = {
  max_chan=10;
  modellist="modellist_rfsimu_1";
  modellist_rfsimu_1 = (
    {
      model_name     = "rfsimu_channel_enB0"
      type           = "SAT_LEO_TRANS";
      noise_power_dB = -100;
    },
    {
      model_name     = "rfsimu_channel_ue0"
      type           = "SAT_LEO_TRANS";
      noise_power_dB = -100;
    }
  );
};

This configuration is also provided in the file targets/PROJECTS/GENERIC-NR-5GC/CONF/channelmod_rfsimu_LEO_satellite.conf.

Additionally, rfsimulator has to be configured to apply the channel model. This can be done by either providing this line in the conf file in section rfsimulator:

  options = ("chanmod");

Or by providing this the the command line parameters:

--rfsimulator.options chanmod

gNB

The main parameter to cope with the large NTN propagation delay is the cellSpecificKoffset. This parameter is the scheduling offset used for the timing relationships that are modified for NTN (see TS 38.213). The unit of the field Koffset is number of slots for a given subcarrier spacing of 15 kHz.

This parameter can be provided to the gNB in the conf file as cellSpecificKoffset_r17 in the section servingCellConfigCommon.

...
      cellSpecificKoffset_r17 = 478; # GEO satellite
#      cellSpecificKoffset_r17 = 40; # LEO satellite
...

Besides this, some timers, e.g. sr_ProhibitTimer_v1700, t300, t301 and t319, in the conf file section gNBs.[0].TIMERS might need to be extended for GEO satellites.

...
    TIMERS :
    {
      sr_ProhibitTimer       = 0;
      sr_TransMax            = 64;
      sr_ProhibitTimer_v1700 = 512;
      t300                   = 2000;
      t301                   = 2000;
      t319                   = 2000;
    };
...

To improve the achievable UL and DL throughput in conditions with large RTT (esp. GEO satellites), there is a feature defined in REL17 to disable HARQ feedback. This allows to reuse HARQ processes immediately, but it breaks compatibility with UEs not supporting this REL17 feature. To enable this feature, the disable_harq flag has to be added to the gNB conf file in the section gNBs.[0]

...
    sib1_tda     = 5;
    min_rxtxtime = 6;
    disable_harq = 1; // <--

    servingCellConfigCommon = (
    {
...

So with these modifications to the file targets/PROJECTS/GENERIC-NR-5GC/CONF/gnb.sa.band66.fr1.25PRB.usrpx300.conf an example gNB command for FDD, 5 MHz BW, 15 kHz SCS, transparent GEO satellite 5G NR NTN is this:

cd cmake_targets
sudo ./ran_build/build/nr-softmodem -O ../targets/PROJECTS/GENERIC-NR-5GC/CONF/gnb.sa.band66.fr1.25PRB.usrpx300.conf --rfsim --rfsimulator.prop_delay 238.74

To configure NTN gNB with 32 HARQ processes in downlink and uplink, add these settings in conf files under section gNBs.[0]

...
    num_dlharq = 32;
    num_ulharq = 32;
...

To simulate a LEO satellite channel model with rfsimulator in UL (DL is simulated at the UE side) either the channelmod section as shown before has to be added to the gNB conf file, or a channelmod conf file has to be included like this:

@include "channelmod_rfsimu_LEO_satellite.conf"

So with these modifications to the file targets/PROJECTS/GENERIC-NR-5GC/CONF/gnb.sa.band66.fr1.25PRB.usrpx300.conf an example gNB command for FDD, 5 MHz BW, 15 kHz SCS, trasparent LEO satellite 5G NR NTN is this:

cd cmake_targets
sudo ./ran_build/build/nr-softmodem -O ../targets/PROJECTS/GENERIC-NR-5GC/CONF/gnb.sa.band66.fr1.25PRB.usrpx300.conf --rfsim --rfsimulator.prop_delay 20

NR UE

At UE side, there are two main parameters to cope with the large NTN propagation delay, cellSpecificKoffset and ta-Common. cellSpecificKoffset is the same as for gNB and can be provided to the UE via command line parameter --ntn-koffset. ta-Common is a common timing advance and can be provided to the UE via command line parameter --ntn-ta-common in milliseconds.

So an example NR UE command for FDD, 5MHz BW, 15 kHz SCS, transparent GEO satellite 5G NR NTN is this:

cd cmake_targets
sudo ./ran_build/build/nr-uesoftmodem --band 66 -C 2152680000 --CO -400000000 -r 25 --numerology 0 --ssb 48 --rfsim --rfsimulator.prop_delay 238.74 --ntn-koffset 478 --ntn-ta-common 477.48

For LEO satellites a third parameter specifying the NTN propagation delay drift has ben added, ta-CommonDrift. ta-CommonDrift provides the drift rate of the common timing advance and can be provided to the UE via command line parameter --ntn-ta-commondrift in microseconds per second. Also, to perform an autonomous TA update based on the DL drift, the boolean parameter --autonomous-ta should be added in case of a LEO satellite scenario.

So an example NR UE command for FDD, 5MHz BW, 15 kHz SCS, transparent LEO satellite 5G NR NTN is this:

cd cmake_targets
sudo ./ran_build/build/nr-uesoftmodem --band 66 -C 2152680000 --CO -400000000 -r 25 --numerology 0 --ssb 48 --rfsim --rfsimulator.prop_delay 20 --rfsimulator.options chanmod -O ../targets/PROJECTS/GENERIC-NR-5GC/CONF/channelmod_rfsimu_LEO_satellite.conf --time-sync-I 0.2 --ntn-koffset 40 --ntn-ta-common 37.74 --ntn-ta-commondrift -50 --autonomous-ta

Specific OAI modes

phy-test setup with OAI UE

The OAI UE can also be used in front of a OAI gNB without the support of eNB or EPC and circumventing random access. In this case both gNB and eNB need to be run with the --phy-test flag. At the gNB this flag does the following

it reads the RRC configuration from the configuration file
it encodes the RRCConfiguration and the RBconfig message and stores them in the binary files rbconfig.raw and reconfig.raw in the current directory
the MAC uses a pre-configured allocation of PDSCH and PUSCH with randomly generated payload instead of the standard scheduler. The options -m, -l, -t, -M, -T, -D, and -U can be used to configure this scheduler. See ./nr-softmodem -h for more information.

At the UE, the --phy-test flag will read the binary files rbconfig.raw and reconfig.raw from the current directory and process them. If you wish to provide a different path for these files, please use the options --reconfig-file and --rbconfig-file.

sudo ./nr-softmodem -O ../../../targets/PROJECTS/GENERIC-LTE-EPC/CONF/gnb.band78.tm1.106PRB.usrpn300.conf --phy-test

sudo ./nr-uesoftmodem --phy-test [--reconfig-file ../../../ci-scripts/rrc-files/reconfig.raw --rbconfig-file ../../../ci-scripts/rrc-files/rbconfig.raw]

In summary:

If you are running on the same machine and launched the 2 executables (nr-softmodem and nr-uesoftmodem) from the same directory, nothing has to be done.
If you launched the 2 executables from 2 different folders, just point to the location where you launched the nr-softmodem:
- sudo ./nr-uesoftmodem --rfsim --phy-test --reconfig-file /the/path/where/you/launched/nr-softmodem/reconfig-file --rbconfig-file /the/path/where/you/launched/nr-softmodem/rbconfig-file --rfsimulator.serveraddr <TARGET_GNB_INTERFACE_ADDRESS>
If you are not running on the same machine, you need to COPY the two raw files
- scp usera@machineA:/the/path/where/you/launched/nr-softmodem/r*config.raw userb@machineB:/the/path/where/you/will/launch/nr-uesoftmodem/
- Obviously this operation should be done before launching the nr-uesoftmodem executable.

In phy-test mode it is possible to mimic the reception of UE Capabilities at gNB through the command line parameter --uecap_file. Refer to the UE Capabilities section for more details.

noS1 setup with OAI UE

Instead of randomly generated payload, in the phy-test mode we can also inject/receive user-plane traffic over a TUN interface. This is the so-called noS1 mode.

The noS1 mode is applicable to both gNB/UE, and enabled by passing --noS1 as an option. The gNB/UE will open a TUN interface which the interface names and IP addresses oaitun_enb1/10.0.1.1, and oaitun_ue1/10.0.1.2, respectively. You can then use these interfaces to send traffic, e.g.,

iperf -sui1 -B 10.0.1.2

to open an iperf server on the UE side, and

iperf -uc 10.0.1.2 -B 10.0.1.1 -i1 -t10 -b1M

to send data from the gNB down to the UE.

Note that this does not work if both interfaces are on the same host. We recommend to use two different hosts, or at least network namespaces, to route traffic through the gNB/UE tunnel.

This option is only really helpful for phy-test/do-ra (see below) modes, in which the UE does not connect to a core network. If the UE connects to a core network, it receives an IP address for which it automatically opens a network interface.

do-ra setup with OAI

The do-ra flag is used to ran the NR Random Access procedures in contention-free mode. Currently OAI implements the RACH process from Msg1 to Msg3.

In order to run the RA, the --do-ra flag is needed for both the gNB and the UE.

In do-ra mode it is possible to mimic the reception of UE Capabilities at gNB through the command line parameter --uecap_file. Refer to the UE Capabilities section for more details.

To run using the RFsimulator:

sudo ./nr-softmodem -O ../../../targets/PROJECTS/GENERIC-LTE-EPC/CONF/gnb.band78.tm1.106PRB.usrpn300.conf --do-ra --rfsim
sudo ./nr-uesoftmodem --do-ra --rfsim --rfsimulator.serveraddr 127.0.0.1

Using USRPs:

sudo ./nr-softmodem -O ../../../targets/PROJECTS/GENERIC-LTE-EPC/CONF/gnb.band78.tm1.106PRB.usrpn300.conf --do-ra

On a separate machine:

sudo ./nr-uesoftmodem --do-ra

Run OAI with SDAP & Custom DRBs

To run OAI gNB with SDAP, simply include --gNBs.[0].enable_sdap 1 to the binary's arguments.

The DRB creation is dependent on the 5QI. If the 5QI corresponds to a GBR Flow it assigns a dedicated data radio bearer. The Non-GBR flows use a shared data radio bearer.

To hardcode the DRBs for testing purposes, simply add --gNBs.[0].drbs x to the binary's arguements, where x is the number of DRBs, along with SDAP. The hardcoded DRBs will be treated like GBR Flows. Due to code limitations at this point the max. number of DRBs is 4.

IF setup with OAI

OAI is also compatible with Intermediate Frequency (IF) equipment. This allows to use RF front-end that with arbitrary frequencies bands that do not comply with the standardised 3GPP NR bands.

To configure the IF frequencies it is necessary to use two command-line options at UE side:

if_freq, downlink frequency in Hz
if_freq_off, uplink frequency offset in Hz

Accordingly, the following parameters must be configured in the RUs section of the gNB configuration file:

if_freq
if_offset

Run OAI with custom DL/UL arbitrary frequencies

The following example uses DL frequency 2169.080 MHz and UL frequency offset -400 MHz, with a configuration file for band 66 (FDD) at gNB side.

On two separate machines with USRPs, run:

sudo ./nr-softmodem -O ../../../targets/PROJECTS/GENERIC-LTE-EPC/CONF/gnb.band66.tm1.106PRB.usrpx300.conf
sudo ./nr-uesoftmodem --if_freq 2169080000 --if_freq_off -400000000

5G gNB MIMO configuration

In order to enable DL-MIMO in OAI 5G softmodem, the prerequisite is to have do_CSIRS = 1 in the configuration file. This allows the gNB to schedule CSI reference signal and to acquire from the UE CSI measurements to be able to schedule DLSCH with MIMO.

The following step is to set the number of PDSCH logical antenna ports. These needs to be larger or equal to the maximum number of MIMO layers requested (for 2-layer MIMO it is necessary to have at least two logical antenna ports).

This image shows an example of gNB 5G MIMO logical antenna port configuration. It has to be noted that logical antenna ports might not directly correspond to physical antenna ports and each logical antenna port might consist of a sub-array of antennas.

In 5G the basic element is a dual-polarized antenna, therefore the minimal DL MIMO setup with two logical antenna ports would consist of two cross-polarized antenna elements. In a single panel configuration, as the one in the picture, this element can be repeated vertically and/or horizontally to form an equi-spaced 1D or 2D array. The values N1 and N2 represent the number of antenna ports in the two dimensions and the supported configurations are specified in Section 5.2.2.2.1 of TS 38.214.

The DL logical antenna port configuration can be selected through configuration file. pdsch_AntennaPorts_N1 can be used to set N1 parameter, pdsch_AntennaPorts_N2 to set N2 and pdsch_AntennaPorts_XP to set the cross-polarization configuration (1 for single pol, 2 for cross-pol). To be noted that if XP is 1 but N1 and/or N2 are larger than 1, this would result in a non-standard configuration and the PMI selected would be the identity matrix regardless of CSI report. The default value for each of these parameters is 1. The total number of PDSCH logical antenna ports is the multiplication of those 3 parameters.

Finally the number of TX physical antenna in the RU part of the configuration file, nb_tx, should be equal or larger than the total number of PDSCH logical antenna ports.

It is possible to limit the number supported DL MIMO layers via RRC configuration, e.g. to a value lower than the number of logical antenna ports configured, by using the configuration file parameter maxMIMO_layers.

Example of configuration file with parameters for 2-layer MIMO

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RUNMODEM.md

RUNMODEM.md

Simulators

RFsimulator

L2 nFAPI Simulator

Running with a true radio head

5G NR

NSA setup with COTS UE

Launch eNB

Launch gNB

SA setup with OAI NR-UE

Optional NR-UE command line options

Common gNB and NR UE command line options

Three-quarter sampling

UE Capabilities

How to run a NTN configuration

NTN channel

gNB

NR UE

Specific OAI modes

phy-test setup with OAI UE

noS1 setup with OAI UE

do-ra setup with OAI

Run OAI with SDAP & Custom DRBs

IF setup with OAI

Run OAI with custom DL/UL arbitrary frequencies

5G gNB MIMO configuration

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RUNMODEM.md

Latest commit

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RUNMODEM.md

File metadata and controls

Simulators

RFsimulator

L2 nFAPI Simulator

Running with a true radio head

5G NR

NSA setup with COTS UE

Launch eNB

Launch gNB

SA setup with OAI NR-UE

Optional NR-UE command line options

Common gNB and NR UE command line options

Three-quarter sampling

UE Capabilities

How to run a NTN configuration

NTN channel

gNB

NR UE

Specific OAI modes

phy-test setup with OAI UE

noS1 setup with OAI UE

do-ra setup with OAI

Run OAI with SDAP & Custom DRBs

IF setup with OAI

Run OAI with custom DL/UL arbitrary frequencies

5G gNB MIMO configuration