The Smart Internet Lab at the University of Bristol in the UK has used Xilinx silicon technology to build and demonstrate the first end-to-end 5G city network.

This 5G network testbed consists of 5G NR radio heads connected to a 5G virtual baseband pool using multiple protocols supporting dynamic latency and elastic bandwidth allocation, and connected to an optical backhaul utilizing an end-to-end SDN control environment. The 5G network testbed has demonstrated use cases such as augmented reality, autonomous driving, and smart tourism in a hyper-connected smart city environment.

Fifth-generation wireless access networks are expected to meet the system and service requirements for new use cases and applications beyond 2020. The most critical aspect of 5G to meet the demands of the information society in 2020 is interconnecting industries and enabling new services.

In contrast, the core theme of 4G LTE, or 4G LTE, is to enable communication and information sharing based on people and places. 5G expands the scope of 4G's communication and information sharing to include machines by adding reliable and flexible control and monitoring capabilities. This change has a significant impact on system requirements and design principles. The vision of 5G will encompass and transform every aspect of our lives, from how we produce products, manage energy and the environment in production processes, and transport, store, and consume products, to how we work, commute, entertain, and even relax.

“Our challenge was to design and build the world’s first 5G city network in Bristol, and we demonstrated it publicly on March 17th and 18th,” said Dimitra Simeonidou, director of the Smart Internet Lab at the University of Bristol. “Key to this architecture was a flexible and programmable network edge, as well as the decoupling of hardware-hosted network functions across the infrastructure, including traffic aggregation and compute. We made extensive use of Xilinx platforms to support this architecture. Our 5G open hardware solution is fully portable, and we already have deployments planned for other cities in the UK and Europe.”

Xilinx's All Programmable FPGAs and SoCs are playing a critical role in enabling 5G proofs of concept and testbeds, as well as early commercial trials for eMBB, URLLC, and mMTC use cases. Commercial silicon for these purposes does not exist, and ASICs have already proven unfeasible in the early stages of 5G standardization. The core value proposition of Xilinx's All Programmable FPGA and SoC-based platforms is their ability to dynamically repurpose these systems, supporting full functionality and advanced algorithm implementations to address a wide variety of use cases.

“Xilinx has a long track record of driving innovation, industry standards, proofs of concept, testbeds, and successful commercialization of technologies to meet the constantly evolving standards that address the ever-increasing demands for connectivity and bandwidth,” said Farhad Shafai, vice president, communications markets, Xilinx. “Xilinx serves leading technologies across diverse markets such as communications, cloud computing, industrial, automotive, medical, broadcast, and public safety. As 5G becomes mainstream, we have a significant opportunity to leverage the leadership and technology investments Xilinx has built over many years across various markets to help the industry meet the demands of the connected information society of 2020.”