Morse Reseach group

The MORSE team is operating an infrastructure for research in 4G/5G technologies in two environments, combining commercial carrier grade and open source network components. The indoor setup is based on a Keysight emulators for 4G and 5G plus anchoic chambers, commercial user devices and advanced monitoring equipment (energy, spectrum, etc.).

Currently, emulators support frequency bands from 800MHz to 26GHz. The outdoor deployment is based on a collaboration with Telefonica, with NOKIA cells on the UMA campus. These cells are connected to local core networks in order to provide a full private network. They support LTE and 5G NR to implement the Non Stand Alone and Stand Alone modes. The distributed configuration with base unit plus remote heads allows it to move towards a C-RAN deployment.

The support of several network identifiers (PLMNs) with MOCN technologies is used to implement a first level of slicing at the radio, offering up to six operators at the same time. Telefonica offers the commercial LTE spectrum for LTE (2600 MHz FDD) and 5G (3500 MHz TDD) for exclusive use on the campus. On top of that, ITIS has obtained authorization to use 26GHz band for milimiter wave.

The virtualized infrastructure with support for traditional virtual machines and containers supports any approach to service deployment. This setup is expanded to the city centre by means of an agreement with the city of Malaga, so ITIS can expand their trials to this relevant area for experimentation, testing and validation in a more crowded environment.