Visiting WiNES Lab at Northeastern University: Accelerating the 5G Control Plane with BlueField DPUs

Visiting WiNES Lab at Northeastern University

From Oct 1 to Dec 31, 2025, our PhD student Mingyu Ma had the privilege of visiting the WiNES Lab at Northeastern University as a Visiting Student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

The visit was hosted by Prof. Michele Polese, whose mentorship and the stimulating research environment at WiNES—spanning wireless systems, programmable networking, and next-generation mobile infrastructure—greatly shaped the experience.

Research Focus: BlueField DPUs for 5G Control Plane Acceleration

During the visit, Mingyu collaborated with Gabriele Gemmi and Stefano Maxenti on exploring how NVIDIA BlueField DPU can be leveraged to accelerate the User Plane Function (UPF) in 5G networks.

While many prior efforts focus on generic data-plane acceleration, the 5G UPF remains largely implemented as a CPU-bound, software-based network function. This work investigates how DPU-based programmable data-plane capabilities can offload and accelerate key UPF functionalities, reducing processing latency and improving scalability for next-generation mobile systems.

Collaboration and Lab Experience

Beyond the technical work, the collaborative atmosphere at WiNES played an important role in the visit. Frequent discussions, idea exchanges, and hands-on experimentation fostered an inspiring research experience.

Looking Forward

This visit was both scientifically enriching and personally memorable. The collaboration opens up promising future directions at the intersection of programmable networks, DPUs, and mobile systems.

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