ARA-O-RAN: End-to-End Programmable O-RAN Living Lab for Agriculture and Rural Communities

TL;DR

ARA-O-RAN delivers a pioneering end-to-end programmable outdoor O-RAN living lab tailored to rural and agricultural environments, addressing interoperability and R&D needs in open architectures. The platform combines Phase-1 outdoor deployments with a 50-node indoor sandbox, a cloud-based software framework, and integrated OpenAirInterface and FlexRIC components to enable end-to-end experiments from gNB to core, including near-RT-RIC/xApps. Key contributions include the first public O-RAN testbed for rural use, BYOD and large-scale indoor experiment capabilities, and a structured path toward integrating additional open-source and commercial testing tools. This work demonstrates the practical impact of purpose-built, real-world testbeds for accelerating O-RAN development and rural connectivity solutions, with plans to broaden spectrum and interface coverage in collaboration with industrial partners.

Abstract

As wireless networks evolve towards open architectures like O-RAN, testing, and integration platforms are crucial to address challenges like interoperability. This paper describes ARA-O-RAN, a novel O-RAN testbed established through the NSF Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR) ARA platform. ARA provides an at-scale rural wireless living lab focused on technologies for digital agriculture and rural communities. As an O-RAN Alliance certified Open Testing and Integration Centre (OTIC), ARA launched ARA-O-RAN -- the first public O-RAN testbed tailored to rural and agriculture use cases, together with the end-to-end, whole-stack programmability. ARA-O-RAN uniquely combines support for outdoor testing across a university campus, surrounding farmlands, and rural communities with a 50-node indoor sandbox. The testbed facilitates vital R\&D to implement open architectures that can meet rural connectivity needs. The paper outlines ARA-O-RAN's hardware system design, software architecture, and enabled research experiments. It also discusses plans aligned with national spectrum policy and rural spectrum innovation. ARA-O-RAN exemplifies the value of purpose-built wireless testbeds in accelerating impactful wireless research.

Figures (6)

• Figure 1: ARA Phase-1 Deployment Map.
• Figure 2: BSs at Ag Farm and Curtiss Farm.
• Figure 3: UE in the field.
• Figure 4: ARA Sandbox Topology.
• Figure 5: ARA-O-RAN Software Architecture.