5G RAN, AI/ML xApps - Help Needed

[JCMT]

Hi everyone,
My name's Filip and I'm from Poland.

I'm trying to use POWDER for my master's degree, since I have to prepare a 5G RAN environment with RIC to research AI/ML xApps. I have found some tips already on the group, but I have trouble with understanding how everything works. I have read some of the tutorial POWDER Documentation, but I am afraid my lack of experience here is a main blocking point, hence I have not found answers to my questions there...

I managed to follow the simple directions to getting up the srsran5g-simulated-rf profile for my experiment and get it working, but I do not understand most of what's getting out in the CLI, and how can I modify the parameters of the xApps, so I could do some research for my degree. 

I have to finish my diploma by the end of August, so if anyone could spare some time to help me out, maybe explain a couple of things, and/or how could I achieve my goal - I would be grateful. 

Thanks in advance and sincere best regards,
Filip

[Dustin Maas]

Hi Filip,

Glad to have you using POWDER! I’d recommend you take advantage of a POWDER office hours session. You can sign up here: https://calendly.com/powderwireless

-Dustin

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[JCMT]

Thanks for the tip!
I have scheduled a meeting next week (since it was the earliest possible).

While I'm waiting for it - do you have some advice on how to modify the profile to use other xApps, and maybe do some measurements about them?
Mainly since I have to research the performance or some traffic, or anything actually - that can be shown on the plot later. 

[JCMT]

Hi,
I have scheduled a meeting, thanks for the tip! 

While I'm waiting, could you maybe share some advice or maybe some existing guide on how to modify the project, so I can measure some plottable parameters of the xApps? Or maybe how to change the xApp per se?
I don't want to sit around and wait until next week, especially since I have to show at least minimal something by tomorrow afternoon. Could you give me some direction where should I start with researching xApps?

- Filip

czwartek, 12 czerwca 2025 o 18:59:14 UTC+2 Dustin Maas napisał(a):

[Eric Eide]

JCMT <j.chronos.i...@gmail.com> writes:

> I don't want to sit around and wait until next week, especially since I have
> to show at least minimal something by tomorrow afternoon. Could you give me
> some direction where should I start with researching xApps?

This paper provides a good overview of O-RAN, including xApps:

M. Polese, L. Bonati, S. D'Oro, S. Basagni, and T. Melodia. Understanding
O-RAN: Architecture, Interfaces, Algorithms, Security, and Research
Challenges. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 25(2):1376-1411,
2023. https://doi.org/10.1109/COMST.2023.3239220

This paper provides a good overview of xApps in particular:

M. Hoffmann et al. Open RAN xApps Design and Evaluation: Lessons Learnt and
Identified Challenges. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications,
42(2):473-486, Feb. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1109/JSAC.2023.3336190

If you haven't read the "NexRAN" paper (by members of the POWDER team), you
probably want to read that as well:

David Johnson, Dustin Maas, and Jacobus Van Der Merwe. NexRAN: Closed-loop
RAN slicing in POWDER -A top-to-bottom open-source open-RAN use case. In
Proceedings of the 15th ACM Workshop on Wireless Network Testbeds,
Experimental evaluation & CHaracterization (WiNTECH), pages 17-23, 2021.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3477086.3480842

Happy reading! ---

Eric.

--
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Eric Eide <ee...@cs.utah.edu> . University of Utah Kahlert School of Computing
https://www.cs.utah.edu/~eeide/ . +1 801-585-5512 . Salt Lake City, Utah, USA