Wireless network emulators are being increasingly used for developing and evaluating new solutions for Next Generation (NextG) wireless networks. However, the reliability of the solutions tested on emulation platforms heavily depends on the precision of the emulation process, model design, and parameter settings. To address, obviate or minimize the impact of errors of emulation models, in this work we apply the concept of Digital Twin (DT) to large-scale wireless systems. Specifically, we demonstrate the use of Colosseum, the world's largest wireless network emulator with hardware-in-the-loop, as a DT for NextG experimental wireless research at scale. As proof of concept, we leverage the Channel emulation scenario generator and Sounder Toolchain (CaST) to create the DT of a publicly-available over-the-air indoor testbed for sub-6 GHz research, namely, Arena. Then, we validate the Colosseum DT through experimental campaigns on emulated wireless environments, including scenarios concerning cellular networks and jamming of Wi-Fi nodes, on both the real and digital systems. Our experiments show that the DT is able to provide a faithful representation of the real-world setup, obtaining an average accuracy of up to 92.5% in throughput and 80% in Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR).
翻译:无线网络仿真器越来越多地用于开发和评估下一代(NextG)无线网络的新解决方案。然而,测试在仿真平台上的解决方案的可靠性严重依赖于仿真过程的精度、模型设计和参数设置。为了解决、消除或最小化仿真模型误差的影响,在这项工作中,我们将数字孪生(DT)的概念应用于大规模无线系统。具体而言,我们展示了世界上最大的具有硬件回路的无线网络仿真器Colosseum作为下一代实验性无线研究的数字孪生。作为概念验证,我们利用通道仿真场景生成器和音响工具链(CaST)创建了一个公开可用的室内测试床场地Arena的DT,然后通过在真实和数字系统上的仿真无线环境实验活动,验证了Colosseum DT。我们的实验表明,DT能够提供真实世界设置的忠实表示,平均吞吐量精度高达92.5%,信干噪比(SINR)高达80%。