A new testing lab in Burlington, MA aims to help ensure interoperability of open radio access network (O-RAN) equipment.

The lab, to be known as the Open Testing and Integration Center (OTIC), was established by the Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things (WIoT) at Northeastern University. It will operate within the Open6G Hub.

The OTIC has been approved by the O-RAN ALLIANCE with the official designation of “North American OTIC in the Boston Area (Northeastern University).”

O-RAN Testing Lab

The OTIC will provide industry, academia and the federal government with testing, certification and badging capabilities.

“It will ensure multi-vendor interoperability, perform compliance and performance testing and validate end-to-end control logic,” said WIoT in a press release. “OTIC also will test artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to control open and programmable cellular networks.”

The OTIC will provide testing equipment and services to validate disaggregated base stations and RAN Intelligent Controllers (RICs). This will include custom applications such as xApps and rApps. End-to-end intelligent applications will be tested against different commercial and open-stack implementations in emulated or over-the-air environments.  

The OTIC also will be a resource for the U.S. government. The Open6G Hub, within which the OTIC will operate, has funding from the Department of Defense’s Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, the Army Research Laboratory Cooperative Agreement and the National Science Foundation’s Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR) program.

“Northeastern’s Open6G is at the forefront of innovation in Open RAN testing, architectures, algorithms, software, and experimentation. Together with our partners, we are creating an innovation and testing ecosystem that will continue to serve the federal government, industry, and academia,” WIoT Director Tommaso Melodia said in a press release.