The Cloud Enhanced Open Software Defined Mobile Wireless Testbed for City-Scale Deployment (COSMOS), a National Science Foundation PAWR (Platform for Advanced Wireless Research) platform led by Rutgers University/WINLAB together with Columbia University and New York University, has embarked on a collaboration with Intel and Airspan Networks to integrate, test, and evaluate the OCUDU (open source CU/DU) software stack in the context of end-to-to open source 5G deployments, paving the way to NextG.

The work combines OCUDU -- an open source 5G and beyond software stack for commercial deployment, research, and innovation being developed by the OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation hosted by the Linux Foundation-- with the Aether SD-Core open-source 5G core and commercial O-RAN radio units (O-RUs). Within the collaboration, COSMOS provides its city-scale testbed, integration site, and experimentation support; Intel, a leading contributor to Aether/SD-Core, collaborates with partners to integrate testing of OCUDU with Aether/SD-Core and with Airspan O-RUs; and Airspan provides support for the integration of its O-RAN radio units, spanning TDD in the n78 band and FDD units in the n1 band. In addition, Airspan will provide and support ORAN DAS as well as Open Source RAN based Network Management platforms, making this a comprehensive testing and evaluation approach.

This effort is part of a larger initiative to test and evaluate OCUDU across a range of use cases and network operating conditions, coordinated by the OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation among organizations spanning industry and academia.

The initial phases of the project focus on integrating Aether/SD-Core with OCUDU and then bringing the Airspan O-RUs into the combined stack. The team will validate end-to-end system stability; including consistent UE attach and data flow, multi-UE operation, fault detection and reporting, and 48–72 hours of continuous operation along with baseline KPIs for throughput, latency, and packet loss, plus energy measurements using the POET testbed at COSMOS/WINLAB (created using the funding support from NTIA, through a NOFO1 grant). Later phases will add SMO/RIC integration, telemetry and management, a secure compute platform, scalability and security evaluation, exemplar xApps/rApps, and zero-touch operations. The integrated solution will be positioned as a 5G+ platform evolving toward 6G/NextG, following 3GPP standards.

About OCUDU

The OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation is a collaborative program hosted by the Linux Foundation dedicated to accelerating open, secure, and interoperable Open Source RAN implementations. The foundation supports the industry with reference architectures, conformance tooling, deployment playbooks, and community CI and interoperability labs that help translate innovation into production-ready deployments. Through a vendor-neutral collaboration model, OCUDU brings together industry, research, and public-sector participants to build and validate open CU/DU software and supporting assets, enabling more portable, reproducible, and cost-efficient approaches to 5G and early 6G network innovation.

Why COSMOS, Intel, and Airspan

COSMOS is a platform for advanced wireless experimentation (both indoor and outdoor), hosting an FCC Innovation Zone and a designated O-RAN Open Testing and Integration Centre (OTIC), with a community of roughly 4,000 registered experimenters. This makes COSMOS a natural environment for validating OCUDU under conditions that generally lab benches cannot reproduce.

Intel brings deep expertise in silicon and platforms, open network software, and is a lead contributor to Aether/SD-Core. SD-Core 5G+ Mobile Core has already been field-trialed with multiple operators and chosen as the baseline core for India's IOS-MCN initiative, as well as for several commercial private 5G deployments.

Airspan Networks contributes its portfolio of O-RAN radio units together with hands-on support for their integration into the OCUDU-based stack. In the broader collaboration, Airspan is also positioned to provide a secure, hardened edge compute platform and an SMO/management solution, pre-integrated with SD-Core and OCUDU, toward a one-click deployable, end-to-end private 5G solution addressing defense, private 5G, and international ecosystem opportunities.

The results of the work will be publicly disseminated with details as the team progresses through its plans in the weeks ahead.

Learn More

• COSMOS — Cloud Enhanced Open Software Defined Mobile Wireless Testbed
• Rutgers WINLAB
• Aether / SD-Core
• Intel
• Airspan Networks
• OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation

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