Publication
6G4All: An Open SDR Platform on a Commercial Baseband SoC with OpenAirInterface for 6G Research and Deployment
Eric Mittag; Lukas Brechtel; Maximilian Stark; Andrew Back; Robert Schmidt; Hans Dieter Schotten
In: Track 4: Emerging Technologies, Applications and Platforms. IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC-2026), September 1-4, Singapore, Singapore, IEEE Xplore, 2026.
Abstract
Experimental 5G and 6G research is dominated by FPGA-based SDR platforms that impose prohibitive cost, require specialised hardware expertise, and create a transfer gap between research prototypes and commercial deployments. We present the 6G4All SDR platform - a compact PCIe module combining the NXP LA9310 commercial cellular baseband SoC with the Lime Microsystems LMS7002M RF transceiver - integrated into the 3GPP-conformant OpenAirInterface (OAI) 5G NR stack. The complete platform stack is open-source: hardware design files, VSPA DSP firmware, Lime Suite NG driver, and the OAI protocol stack. Target applications include RedCap-class research in the bandwidth, cost, and power envelope of reduced-capability devices, as well as embedded edge deployments—drones, vehicles, robots—incompatible with rack-mounted FPGA hardware. We demonstrate end-to-end IP connectivity in SA mode across two FR1 bands and both duplexing modes: Band 5 (FDD, 20 MHz, 88.1 Mbit/s downlink with a COTS UE over the air) and Band 41 (TDD, attach and latency demonstrated), on two heterogeneous host ISA families. To our knowledge, this is the first experimental validation of standards-compatible 5G NR operation on a production-grade cellular baseband SoC with a commercial UE, providing a concrete step toward reducing the transfer gap between open research prototypes and deployment-oriented hardware.