OpenRRH: Project accepted

The FDL accepted the project to release the PCB design files of a small Remote Radio Head (rrh) under open source licence. The project was introduced by Rapid.Space which aims to open source the design files of a prototype that has been successfully tested to work with 4G/5G private networks, supports static or dynamic spectrum sharing and targets factories or small campuses with 2x0.5W MIMO. With the project being accepted by the FDL committee, FDL is now working to acquire the necessary funding for the project.


Paris, April 29th, 2020 - The FDL accepted the project to release the PCB design files of a small Remote Radio Head (rrh) under open source licence. The project was introduced by Rapid.Space which aims to open source the design files of a prototype that has been successfully tested to work with 4G/5G private networks and targets factories or small campuses with 2x0.5W MIMO. With the project being accepted by the FDL committee, FDL is now working to acquire the necessary funding for the project.

A remote radio head (RRH) is a remote radio transceiver.  It consists of two parts: a transmit part and a receive part. The transmit part usually consists of a DAC, Mixer, Power Amplifier and Filters. A digital signal is received via a PCI or eCPRI interface, converted to analog, upconverted to an RF Frequency, amplified, filtered and then sent out via an antenna. The Receive part consists of a filter, Low Noise Amplifier, Mixer and an ADC. It receives a signal from the antenna, filters it, amplifies it, down-converts it to an IF Frequency and then converts it to a digital signal, before sending it out via the PCI or eCPRI for further processing. Within the architecture of Rapid.Space, the open source RRH will support two types of deployment modes: monolothic, where each RRH acts as autonomous base station and modular, where up to 48 RRH can be connected to standard open source switch.

Jean-Paul Smets, CEO of Rapid.Space: "Being able to manufacture an open source RRH based on the open source PCB files is the missing link to creating a fully open source system for telecom operating system. Using licence free frequencies available in Japan and Europe combined with dynamic spectrum sharing we will be able to offer all compontens of our hyperopen reversible cloud under open source licence. Rapid.Space will be able to provide a 4G/5G vRAN in a factory, buffer data from industial IoTs to an edge gateway and process data in an AI platform hosted on the cloud. Publishing the PCB design files of the RRH under open source licence will also mean that anyone interested in doing the same can do so - including industrials, who do not want to wait  for a solution backed by a telecommunication operator."

References

 

About FDL

FDL (Fonds de Dotation du Libre) is a French non-profit organisation to sponsor both the long term maintenance of essential free software as well as the short-term feature development - handled through it's sister association AWL (Association pour un Web Libre). Both associations aim to use tax breaks for donations made to general use and essential open source software to fill the gap between public R&D funding and private system integration funding. 

More information: https://fdl-lef.org/

Interested in sponsoring the project? Contact us at +33 6 29 02 44 25 or via mail at:  contact (a) fdl-lef.org

 

About Rapid.Space

Rapid.Space is a cloud provider whose "Hyper Open" approach is based exclusively on the use of fully auditable and reversible software, hardware, and management procedures under open source or source licenses. Rapid.Space has a presence in France, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, as well as Taiwan and Shanxi (China). It covers about 85% of the features of most sophisticated public cloud services while bringing unique benefits in terms of sovereignty, independence, fair pricing, stability, and sustainability to the cloud market.

More information: https://rapid.space/