LoFi5G MAT: a Low-cost, High-fidelity 5G Virtualized Testbed for Academic Purposes

This work presents a flexible and adaptable, Low-cost, high-Fidelity 5G Mobile network Academic Testbed (LoFi5G MAT) for use in undergraduate teaching and research projects. LoFi5G MAT is integrated with HAST, our department's OpenStack-based private cloud, which enables resource sharing between various workloads of our department while managing different priorities and fidelity requirements. LoFi5G MAT is designed to emulate mobile network elements for 4G and 5G core and RAN scenarios suited to undergraduate laboratories, as well as paradigms such as SBA, CUPS, network slicing, and emerging technologies such as Open-RAN. Through its use, students can acquire hands-on knowledge, understanding key functionalities and their relevance. This work also presents and analyzes our students' experiences using LoFi5G MAT at the end-of-career mobile networks course during the 2024-1 semester, showing a significant improvement (22%) in the associated students' outcomes, which demonstrate its value in undergraduate teaching.