NSF's PAWR cheers open RAN OTICs across US

POWDER at the University of Utah – POWDER supports end-to-end Open RAN testing in lab and field scenarios and has developed a Testing Orchestration and Testing Automation (TOTA) framework to provide streamlined, on-demand testing capabilities. O-RAN ALLIANCE defined OTIC services provided by POWDER will include interoperability and end-to-end testing, badging and certification. POWDER will offer additional Open RAN related services including use case and proof-of-concept development and evaluation, functional testing in lab and field environments, and Open RAN intelligent ecosystem research, testing and development.

ARA at Iowa State University – ARA enables research into connectivity solutions for rural environments, including offering a heterogeneous set of access network technologies to support innovative Open RAN testing and development for digital agriculture, rural education, and more. As an OTIC, ARA will support Open RAN R&D, device-level and end-to-end testing of performance, interoperability, and conformance in both sandbox and at-scale field settings.

Colosseum as part of the Institute for the WIoT at Northeastern University – The Northeastern team is using the Colosseum infrastructure, which is affiliated with the PAWR program, and other assets of the Institute's Open 6G Hub to provide testing capabilities for end-to-end AI and ML solutions that will enable new Open RAN use cases. Through its OTIC, Northeastern will provide testing, certification, and badging capabilities.