OpenAirInterface: Democratizing innovation in the 5G Era

Abstract

OpenAirInterfaceTM (OAI) is an open-source project that implements the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) technology on general purpose x86 computing hardware and Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Software Defined Radio (SDR) cards like the Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP). It makes it possible to deploy and operate a 4G Long-Term Evolution (LTE) network today and 5G New Radio (NR) networks in the future at a very low cost. Moreover, the open-source code can be adapted to different use cases and deployment and new functionality can be implemented, making it an ideal platform for both industrial and academic research. The OAI Software Alliance (OSA) is a non-profit consortium fostering a community of industrial as well as research contributors. It also developed the OAI public license which is an open source license that allows contributors to implement their own patented technology without having to relinquish their intellectual property rights. This new clause is in agreement with the Fair, Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) clause found in 3GPP. This paper describes the current OAI state-of-the-art of the development, the OAI community and development process, as well as the OAI public license and its usage by academia and industry.