Publications

This paper presents Plaza6G, the first operational Experimentation-as-a-Service (ExaS) platform unifying cloud resources with next-generation wireless infrastructure. Developed at CTTC in Barcelona, Plaza6G integrates GPU-accelerated compute clusters, multiple 5G cores—both open-source (e.g., Free5GC) and commercial (e.g., Cumucore)—programmable RANs, and physical or emulated user equipment under unified orchestration. In Plaza6G, experiment design requires minimal expertise, as it is expressed in natural language via a web portal or a REST API. The web portal and REST API are enhanced with a Large Language Model (LLM)-based assistant, which employs retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) for up-to-date experiment knowledge and Low-Rank Adaptation (LoRA) for continuous domain fine-tuning. Over-the-air (OTA) trials leverage a four-chamber anechoic facility and a dual-site outdoor 5G network operating in sub-6 GHz and mmWave bands. Demonstrations include automated CI/CD integration with sub-ten-minute setup and interactive OTA testing under programmable propagation conditions. Machine-readable experiment descriptors ensure reproducibility, while future work targets policy-aware orchestration, safety validation, and federated testbed integration toward open, reproducible wireless experimentation.

Experimentation in 5G and next-generation (xG) mobile networks is crucial for overcoming the limitations of theoretical models and simulations in accurately reflecting real-world complexities. The dynamic nature of advanced wireless communications necessitates practical validation through hands-on testing, a need increasingly addressed by 5G and beyond testbeds. However, challenges remain in ensuring these testbeds are easy to use and open enough to enable users and companies to interact autonomously with the experimental platforms, minimizing human intervention towards a zero-touch approach. This work, presented as a short paper on ongoing research and innovative ideas, introduces a novel approach that leverages Experiment-as-a-Service (ExaS) to enhance Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) by integrating xG testbeds into the acceptance testing phase. We discuss the challenges of enabling automated interactions between CI/CD pipelines and xG testbeds. Finally, we present a use case to illustrate the vision of the paper by mapping each phase of the CI/CD pipeline to the example use case, highlighting the benefits of integrating ExaS into the acceptance testing phase.