Unleashing Sensor-Aided Environment Awareness for Beam Management in Beyond-5G Networks: an Openairinterface Experimental Platform

Large antenna arrays and beamforming techniques are key components for exploiting the spectrum-rich FR2 bands in next-generation mobile communication networks. Given the site-specific spatio-temporal variations of the mm-wave channel, non-RF sensor inputs and environment awareness can be leveraged to greatly enhance beam management decisions, e.g. via machine learning (ML) techniques. However, the current literature lacks open platforms to gather datasets for the training of such ML techniques and to evaluate novel beam management approaches in real-time, real-world scenarios and full-stack endto-end networks. In this work, we present our SDR-based experimental platform based on OpenAirInterface and are the first to integrate popular low-cost antenna array transceivers, beam sweeping capabilities, and a highly-modular sensor framework and associated interfaces into such a full-stack experimental platform. This enables beam management experimentation in real-world, real-time scenarios and facilitates gathering datasets necessary for developing ML-based beam management protocols that incorporate environment awareness via sensor modalities.