Blueprint of UEs

For Over-the-Air blueprints you may either use:

• Quectel module (normally included with your MX-PDK) connected to one of the cluster nodes.
• Quectel module connected to an external linux system.
• A smartphone.

In-Cluster Quectel Blueprint

With this type of blueprint, the terminal will be deployed as a Kubernetes pod and brc test CLI commands for generating traffic will be available.

Model to be used in blueprint file spec: terminal/quectel

Source: terminals/quectel.yaml

quectel.yaml

quectel.yaml

# Quectel modem (COTS UE) for the over-the-air blueprints: USRP, Benetel, Liteon, LiteON AIO and Amarisoft.
# Applies as is to networks/oai/usrp/01-b200.yaml (network oai-usrp). For another blueprint, replace
# oai-usrp by its network name (metadata.name), and gnb by cu-du for a CU/DU blueprint.
# Set the identity to the SIM card in the modem.
apiVersion: athena.trirematics.io/v1
kind: Terminal
metadata:
    name: quectel
    namespace: trirematics
spec:
    vendor: oai # amr for the Amarisoft blueprints
    stack: 5g-sa
    model: terminal/quectel
    preferred-access: gnb.oai-usrp # <access>.<network>
    target-cores:
        - core.oai-usrp # core.<network>
    identity:
        imsi: "001010000000001" # SIM card IMSI
        pin: "1234" # SIM card PIN
        opc: "0xc42449363bbad02b66d16bc975d77cc1" # SIM card OPC
        key: "0xfec86ba6eb707ed08905757b1bb44b8f" # SIM card key
        sqn: "0xff9bb4000001" # SIM card SQN
    slice:
        dnn: internet
        network-mode: IPv4
        service-type: 1
        differentiator: 0x000000
    radio:
        bands:
            - n78 # band of the network cell; list several bands for inter-frequency handover
    readiness-check:
        method: ping
        target: google-ip

warning

It is very important that preferred-access and target-cores name the Network the UE should connect to. They are <access-name>.<network-name> and <core-name>.<network-name>, where network-name is the metadata-->name of the Network and the access and core names come from its spec-->access and spec-->core sections. Every over-the-air blueprint gives both values in its last line, for example preferred-access gnb.oai-usrp, target-cores core.oai-usrp. Use vendor: amr for the Amarisoft blueprints.

Use the command brc install terminal <blueprint-name>.yaml to deploy the terminal within the cluster. Check for the status of the terminal using the command brc observe. Wait until the quectel Element is with the STATUS set to 1/1 Y state.

External Blueprint

This blueprint option allows to connect either a Quectel UE connected to an external system (outside the cluster) or a smartphone to a given deployed network. Model to be used in blueprint file spec: terminal/external

When using a Quectel module connected to an external system, the terminal can be controlled with our Snap application, but traffic generation will need to be done manually (i.e., not using brc test CLI commands).

Adding external UEs to the network database

Source: terminals/external.yaml

external.yaml

external.yaml

# External UE: a phone or a modem that the cluster does not run, for the over-the-air blueprints.
# Athena creates no pod for it; it only registers the subscriber (identity and slice) in the core, so the UE can
# attach with its own SIM. Readiness checks are not supported for external Terminals.
# Applies as is to networks/oai/usrp/01-b200.yaml (network oai-usrp). For another blueprint, replace
# oai-usrp by its network name (metadata.name), and gnb by cu-du for a CU/DU blueprint.
# Set the identity to the SIM card in the UE.
apiVersion: athena.trirematics.io/v1
kind: Terminal
metadata:
    name: external
    namespace: trirematics
spec:
    vendor: oai # amr for the Amarisoft blueprints
    stack: 5g-sa
    model: terminal/external
    preferred-access: gnb.oai-usrp # <access>.<network>
    target-cores:
        - core.oai-usrp # core.<network>
    identity:
        imsi: "001010000000001" # SIM card IMSI
        pin: "1234" # SIM card PIN
        opc: "0xc42449363bbad02b66d16bc975d77cc1" # SIM card OPC
        key: "0xfec86ba6eb707ed08905757b1bb44b8f" # SIM card key
        sqn: "0xff9bb4000001" # SIM card SQN
    slice:
        dnn: internet
        network-mode: IPv4
        service-type: 1
        differentiator: 0x000000
    radio:
        bands:
            - n78 # band of the network cell

warning

External terminal spec should not include a readiness check.

Use the command brc install terminal <blueprint-name>.yaml to deploy the terminal within the cluster. Check if the UE has been added to the Core Network database with brc observe. Press Tab to enter the Terminals tab within the dashboard and confirm that the terminal appears with the correct IMSI.

Quectel Connection manager (CM) with Snap

If in your over-the-air blueprint you are using external UEs, in the case of using the Quectel UEs provided by BubbleRAN, you will need to connect them to an Ubuntu system (e.g. a laptop) and start it. All customers get a USB stick with our UE snap which can be used for setting up the UE. You can install the Quectel CM snap on an Ubuntu machine to connect to the 5G network deployed on your cluster. Here are the steps:

• Install the snap sudo snap install --devmode new-oai-ue.snap

• Check if the snap is installed snap list

• Init the Snap sudo oai-ue.init

• Configure the Quectel Module sudo oai-ue.conf edit quectel

  Edit the file and add the desired PLMN, bands, etc.

• Give the permission to the Snap to connect to the USB

  sudo snap connect oai-ue:raw-usb

• Run the Quectel CM sudo oai-ue.quectel

• To stop, just do control ^C

Check out more about the snaps

1. https://snapcraft.io/docs/get-started
2. https://bubbleran.com/docs/academia/hydra/concepts/Snap