After reaching our major milestone of enabling full End-to-End (E2E) 5G simulation within Gazebo, the RoboSim5G team has focused on making the platform as flexible as possible. We are excited to announce that RoboSim5G now supports three major open-source 5G Core Networks, allowing users to choose the setup that best fits their specific requirements.

More Choice: free5GC, Open5GS, and OAI

Every 5G Core implementation has its own unique strengths, features, and community support. To ensure robotics developers aren't limited by their network stack, we have expanded our compatibility beyond OpenAirInterface (OAI).

RoboSim5G now officially supports:

• Open5GS: Highly regarded for being lightweight and easy to deploy.

• free5GC: A feature-rich, robust core popular in the research community.

• OpenAirInterface (OAI): Our original baseline for deep RAN/Core integration.

By supporting these different ecosystems, we allow users to leverage the specific advantages of each core while maintaining the seamless Gazebo integration for their robotic agents.

The Hybrid Setup: Why free5GC + OAI-UPF?

While we value choice, we also prioritize performance testing. Our implementation of free5GC includes a specialized hybrid setup that utilizes the free5GC Control Plane alongside the OAI-UPF (User Plane Function).

Why this combination? While many cores excel at signaling, enforcing complex Quality of Service (QoS) rules in a simulated environment is a common bottleneck. By integrating the OAI-UPF into the free5GC environment, we bridge the gap between signaling and enforcement. This allows for a much more realistic handling of data traffic.

Real-World QoS Testing in Simulation

In a real-world warehouse or factory, a robot’s performance depends on the network's ability to prioritize critical control traffic over background data. With this update, RoboSim5G makes it possible to test these scenarios E2E:

1. QoS Signaling: Define 5G QoS Flow Identifiers (QFIs) and policies within the core network.

2. QoS Enforcement: The OAI-UPF ensures that traffic is handled according to those rules.

3. Behavioral Impact: Observe directly in Gazebo how network prioritization (or lack thereof) affects your robot's navigation, sensor streams, and safety logic.

Getting Started

We provide all the necessary configuration files and documentation to help you deploy these different environments. Whether you need the simplicity of Open5GS or the specialized QoS enforcement of our free5GC/OAI hybrid, the updated repository has you covered.

Visit our GitHub to explore the new setups: https://github.com/phinetech/RoboSim5G

What’s Next?

With expanded core support and QoS enforcement live, we are moving closer to our vision of a "Digital Twin" for 5G robotics. Stay tuned as we continue to integrate QoS features into the plugin so that users can easily explore how different QoS configs affect their traffic and robot performance.