🤖 AI Summary
This study addresses the lack of scalable multi-hop 5G NR sidelink mesh network simulation capabilities in OpenAirInterface (OAI) by proposing a component-based SL-RFSIM framework. This framework replaces conventional RF simulators with a broker-based publish/subscribe architecture, supporting arbitrary point-to-point connections and Layer-2 mesh networking. Through a pluggable design integrating modular services such as mobility and propagation models, it establishes a large-scale multi-hop experimental environment fully compatible with the OAI protocol stack. Validation using the BATMAN-adv routing protocol on the SLICES-RI infrastructure demonstrates that the proposed architecture effectively supports large-scale sidelink simulations while identifying critical software bottlenecks. The project has been released as open source, providing a reproducible experimental foundation for future research.
📝 Abstract
Recent 3GPP releases have extended 5G New Radio (NR) Sidelink (SL) to support device-to-device (D2D) relay and multi-hop capabilities. This paper presents SL-RFSIM, a component-based experimentation framework extending OpenAirInterface (OAI) with scalable multi-hop NR SL capabilities. SL-RFSIM replaces the legacy OAI RF simulator with a broker-based publish/subscribe architecture enabling arbitrary peer-to-peer connectivity while preserving compatibility with the OAI protocol stack. The framework further integrates pluggable mobility, propagation, reception, and monitoring services, and supports Layer-2 mesh networking through BATMAN-adv. Experimental evaluation on the SLICES-RI research infrastructure validates the proposed architecture through representative mesh networking scenarios and identifies the current software bottlenecks limiting scalability. SL-RFSIM provides an open-source foundation for reproducible experimental research on 5G NR SL and future multi-hop cellular mesh networks.