Colosseum Wireless Network Emulator
Colosseum is the world’s largest RF emulator designed to support research and development of large-scale, next generation radio network technologies in a repeatable and highly configurable RF environment. It combines 128 Standard Radio Nodes (SRNs) with a Massive digital Channel Emulator (MCHEM) backed by an extensive FPGA routing fabric.
Colosseum is remotely accessible to users and operates 24/7/365, with resources reservable through a simple web interface.
Hardware Architecture
Each Standard Radio Node (SRN) provides a platform for Software Defined Radio and Machine Learning applications with two key hardware components:
A Dell R730 Server with an NVIDIA K40M GPU
An Ettus Research USRP X310 Software-defined Radio equipped with a XILINX Kintex 7 FPGA
The Massive Channel Emulator (MCHEM) facilitates real-world wireless RF channel emulation between the SRNs and can emulate fading, multipath, and other effects for up to 256 x 256 independently customizable channels. This architecture enables large scale RF testing with up to 256 independent radio nodes, each with powerful computational capabilities.
Colosseum architecture showing the interconnection between SRNs and MCHEM
RF Emulation Capabilities
Colosseum offers comprehensive RF emulation features including:
Emulation of multiple operational environments including a 1 sq. km open field, dense urban cities, suburban shopping malls, deserts, or custom scenarios
Real-time multipath and fading effects with high-fidelity ray-tracing
Full-stack repeatable environment (from RF to application layer)
Large scale testing with up to 256 radio nodes and 256x256 configurable channels
Container Environment
Users operate within a containerized environment that provides flexibility and customization options:
Preconfigured and ready-to-use LXC containers for basic testing
User-customizable containers for developing and implementing specialized radio code
Custom container images can be uploaded to Colosseum servers
Options to load default or customized containers onto SRNs during reserved sessions
Supported Technologies
Colosseum supports research across a wide range of wireless technologies:
Cellular networks (4G, 5G)
WiFi (802.11ac, 802.11ax)
IoT protocols
MIMO and beamforming
Cognitive radio systems
Dynamic spectrum access
Edge computing and cloud RAN
Machine learning for wireless communications
Resource Allocation
Users have access to:
High-performance computing (Dell R730 Servers, NVIDIA GPUs)
Professional SDR hardware (Ettus X310)
Comprehensive RF channel emulation via MCHEM
Shared network-attached storage for experiment data
Pre-configured container environments
Experimentation Options
Emulation jobs can be conducted in two ways:
Interactive sessions: Manually control experiments during scheduled reservation times
Batch jobs: Set up experiments to run automatically according to predefined instructions
Getting Started
Note
If you are interested in becoming a Colosseum user, you can request a new team and account via the signup form
Colosseum Help Desk
In case of technical issues with Colosseum, you can open a new support ticket here.