ML and Smartphones Assisted Real-Time Uplink Performance Prediction in 5G Cellular System

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that machine learning models can reliably predict 5G uplink performance metrics like throughput and BLER using real-time smartphone measurements in various indoor and outdoor scenarios.

Contribution

It introduces a practical framework combining smartphones and ML for real-time 5G uplink performance prediction validated with extensive real-world data.

Findings

ML models accurately predict throughput and BLER in 5G uplink.

Smartphones and common ML algorithms suffice for reliable performance forecasting.

The approach works across different environments and mobility conditions.

Abstract

We propose a machine learning (ML) and smartphone-assisted framework for uplink performance prediction in a private, realistic 5G cellular system using real-time measurements in both indoor and outdoor settings. This work presents a comprehensive data-driven evaluation of 5G performance prediction using a controllable software-defined radio test environment. The experimental platform is built on srsRAN 5G NR stack running on a Dell workstation configured as a gNB and 5G core operating at 3.4 GHz. Two commercial Google Pixel 7a devices are instrumented to capture uplink metrics, including channel quality indicator (CQI), modulation and coding scheme (MCS), throughput, transmission time interval (TTI), and block error rate (BLER). Different types of traffic are generated using industry-standard tools such as Ookla and iperf, spanning stationary, pedestrian, and mobility cases under both line-of-sight (LOS) and non-line-of-sight (nLOS) propagation environments. Additional datasets include YouTube video sessions and global server endpoints to introduce variability in path characteristics. The resulting measurements, including multi-UE interference conditions, serve as training data for several supervised regression models. Five learning algorithms-linear regression, decision tree, random forest, XGBoost, and LightGBM-are benchmarked for prediction accuracy. The study shows that reliable forecasting of throughput and BLER is feasible using only COTS smartphones and widely available ML methods, offering a practical pathway for real-world 5G network performance estimation.