FRANC was the first intervention DSIT announced from the Open Networks Programme in 2021. A total of 14 projects were funded to support the goals of the Government’s 5G Supply Chain Diversification Strategy by helping to incentivise the industry to create new products and services to unlock the full potential of Open RAN.
These projects have enabled a wide range of organisations to focus on developing technical solutions such as:
• Radio transmitters
• Signal processing equipment
• Power management systems
• Software to support open interface architectures
The projects spread across the UK, including Glasgow, Cardiff, Cambridge, Newcastle, Newport, Slough and Ebbw Vale - building on the existing industrial strength of these regions, while further developing an engineering base with a new set of skills.
The projects are coming to a close this year, and we will be publishing a series of case studies and project closure reports to ensure that the broader ecosystem is able to benefit from the learnings and developments of each project .
In the first in this FRANC case study series, we explore the Secure 5G project.
Secure 5G Case Study
Secure5G aimed to develop an end-to-end 5G system, aligned with the Open RAN framework and principles, with reconfigurability, future-proofed security, trustworthiness, and service architecture agility. Project details are as follows:
- DSIT funding: £0.99m
- Partner funding: £648K
- Project dates: 01/01/2022 - 30/06/2023
- Locations: Newport, Surrey, London, Shipley
- Project Partners: Compound Semiconductor Applications Catapult Limited, Lime Microsystems Limited, Slipstream Engineering Design Limited, Arqit Limited.
It brought together partners involved throughout the UK supply chain to realise a system that could be rapidly reconfigured and optimised for operation in diverse industry-centric and consumer-centric applications in both private and public environments. In other words, the solution is useful both in private networks such as might be used in factories by specialists as well as the wider public networks used by everyone.
By disaggregating hardware and software components and hence supplier chains, the technology developed expects to enable further innovation, flexibility and scalability. This will be achieved without compromising security while at the same time reducing costs for suppliers and operators. This will break single vendor dependencies at the strategic level and will significantly reduce power consumption at the operational level.
Watch the Secure5G Animation video here.
Highlights:
- The Secure5G project successfully advanced the development of secure, open interface 5G connectivity. The project utilised UK-based expertise to develop a more efficient broadband, power amplifier for cellular base stations. Additionally, the project focused on creating a highly innovative, flexible hardware and software platform to control and linearise the base station power amplifier. This product was integrated with a radio architecture specifically developed by the project following ORAN principles.
- Lime Microsystems developed a base station Power Amplifier (PA) supervisory circuit along with an adaptive digital predistortion (ADPD) controller. The controller was then integrated in a private 5G “base-station-in-a-box” to control Wideband PA hardware designed by Slipstream Engineering Design. The Secure5G project presented a valuable opportunity to develop essential building blocks for showcasing secure open interface 5G connectivity.
- The Arqit QuantumCloud post-quantum security approach provided a robust symmetrical key encryption solution that was integrated with Lime Microsystem's 5G ORAN base-station-in-a-box. Through collaboration with Lime Microsystem, Arqit successfully validated the robustness and applicability of their encryption solution for 5G systems, also suggesting that the same approach could find application equally well elsewhere. Slipstream Engineering Design played a crucial role in the project, specifically related to the broadband, energy efficient power amplifier hardware design and implementation. The CSA Catapult provided a state-of-the-art power amplifier test laboratory for characterisation. The collaboration between Slipstream and CSA Catapult was central in identifying and solving key challenges in the development of broadband power amplifiers, as well as developing automated power amplifier test and DPD (pre-distortion) solutions.
- The Secure5G project won the Communications and IT Award at the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) Excellence and Innovation Awards in November 2023.
Next steps after the project funding period:
- Future development plans from Arqit include the creation of an Android app to extend post-quantum secure encryption services to a broader user base.
- Lime Microsystems is engaged in the DSIT Open Networks Ecosystem Project: HiPer-RAN (Highly Intelligent, Highly Performing RAN). They are also continuing with the development of the Secure5G hardware. It will be released to market, following certification and further development, including size reduction for example.
- Arqit are engaged in the DSIT Open Networks Ecosystem Project: ARIANE (Accelerating RAN Intelligence Across Network Ecosystems
- CSA Catapult is engaged in DSIT Open Networks Ecosystem Project: 5G SWaP+C (Size, Weight and Power + Cost)
- Slipstream are engaged in future customer bids drawing upon the technology demonstrated in the Secure5G project. (Due to defence project confidentiality, these cannot be described in this report).
To learn more about the project and its outputs please read the Secure5G final report here
