Design and Evaluation of Next-Generation Cellular Networks through Digital and Physical Open and Programmable Platforms

Abstract: The evolution of the Radio Access Network (RAN) in 5G and 6G technologies marks a shift toward open, programmable, and softwarized architectures, driven by the Open RAN paradigm. This approach emphasizes open interfaces for telemetry sharing, intelligent data-driven control loops for network optimization, and virtualization and disaggregation of multi-vendor RAN components. While promising, this transition introduces significant challenges, including the need to design interoperable solutions, acquire datasets to train and test AI/ML algorithms for inference and control, and develop testbeds to benchmark these solutions. Experimental wireless platforms and private 5G deployments play a key role, providing architectures comparable to real-world systems and enabling prototyping and testing in realistic environments. This dissertation focuses on the development and evaluation of complementary experimental platforms: Colosseum, the world's largest Open RAN digital twin, and X5G, an open, programmable, multi-vendor private 5G O-RAN testbed with GPU acceleration. The main contributions include: (i) CaST, enabling automated creation and validation of digital twin wireless scenarios through 3D modeling, ray-tracing, and channel sounding; (ii) validation of Colosseum digital twins at scale, demonstrating that emulated environments closely reproduce real-world setups; (iii) X5G, integrating NVIDIA Aerial GPU-accelerated PHY processing with OpenAirInterface higher layers; (iv) a GPU-accelerated dApp framework for real-time RAN inference, enabling sub-millisecond control loops for AI-native applications including ISAC; and (v) intelligent RAN applications spanning spectrum sharing, interference detection, network slicing, security, and CSI-based sensing. Overall, this dissertation provides an end-to-end methodology bridging digital and physical experimentation for next-generation cellular networks.