📋 Tender Overview
For cellular device manufacturers 5G NR means a new complexity with a high impact on the development process. Advanced RF interfaces with antenna arrays operating in the mmWave range are making test setups and procedures more challenging. With Mobile World Congress returning to Barcelona in June 2021 Rohde Schwarz is showcasing the latest highlights of its cellular device testing portfolio which cover all stages from early 5G NR device design phases to conformance testing to device manufacturing.Test solutions for 5G reality evolution are the focal point of the Rohde Schwarz activities at Mobile World Congress 2021 MWC21. When it comes to cellular device testing Rohde Schwarz will showcase the following highlights at the industrys premier eventHigh-throughput eMBB end-to-end testingEnhanced mobile broadband eMBB is the use case of 5G NR that supports the ever-increasing end user data rate and system capacity as mobile devices integrate more and more internet based services and applications. At MWC21 Rohde Schwarz demonstrates together with VIAVI its RS CMX500 radio communication tester and the VIAVI TM500 network tester in a 5G NR eMBB end-to-end test scenario in 5G SA standalone mode exceeding for the first time a high-speed data throughput of 7.5 Gbps. This demonstration paves the way for upcoming data rates of 10 Gbps. In this scenario the instruments simulate a standalone 5G cellular network with 8x downlink carrier aggregation in an NR dual connectivity NR DC setup using one component carrier 1xCC in FR1 and seven component carriers 7xCC in FR2 with 256QAM applied to all carriers. End-to-end testing evaluates the data throughput from the built-in simulated server and base station to the device under test in a well-defined network environment. For this scenario the RS CMX500 features an integrated FTP server which enables upload and download throughput tests for the file transfer protocol.VoNR audio quality testingEven with 5G voice services will remain a key use case for mobile subscribers. Rohde Schwarz has teamed up with HEAD acoustics to verify the quality of voice services over 5G NR. At MWC21 the two companies demonstrate a test solution based on the latest generation of the RS CMX500 radio communication tester combined with the labCORE hardware platform from HEAD acoustics and their ACQUA measurement and analysis software. The setup allows simulation of a voice connection in both 5G SA VoNR and 5G NSA VoLTE deployment scenarios. This enables manufacturers of 5G capable mobile devices to test their voice quality at an early stage before market introduction.Conformance testing and carrier acceptance testsConformance testing is a crucial step in bringing mobile devices to the market. With the introduction of 5G NR the number of test cases is growing exponentially due to the huge number of supported band combinations deployment options and evolving standards. Major 5G operators ask for additional carrier acceptance tests to ensure cellular devices function properly. With an RS CMX500 based test system Rohde Schwarz supports carrier acceptance tests such as performance quality analysis PQA network protocol tests NPT and LBS tests in 5G FR2. In all applications the extremely compact RS ATS800R CATR antenna test system for over-the-air OTA measurements is used. At MWC21 Rohde Schwarz demonstrates a typical carrier acceptance test case heat dissipation of a mobile device as a function of data throughput.Multireflector compact antenna test range5G NR devices equipped with mmWave antenna arrays each consisting of a transceiver frontend and phased array antenna cannot be verified using conducted tests. Moreover features such as beamforming can only be tested over the air. Consequently 3GPP specifies that all FR2 conformance tests need to be performed over the air under direct or indirect far-field conditions. With the RS ATS1800M Rohde Schwarz is introducing a CATR based mmWave test chamber that provides a multireflector setup with a small footprint to test with low measurement uncertainty. This solution is ideal for characterizing devices in the presence of multiple signals coming from different directions using a full black box test approach a typical test scenario in radio resource management RRM testing that is made possible thanks to a total of four CATR reflectors in the RS ATS1800M each one providing a quiet zone with an unrivaled size of 30 cm in diameter.mmWave testing on the factory floorWhile the demand for manufacturing test solutions for 5G NR devices is growing high-volume testing of devices operating in the mmWave range brings new challenges. Since these devices have no RF connectors DUT validation needs to take place in an OTA environment. For this Rohde Schwarz has developed the RS CMPQ test platform. Manufacturers setting up their production lines can configure the individual components and the overall system independently to create customized solutions for FR2 testing. The RS CMPQ consists of an RS CMP200 radio communication tester RS CMPHEAD30 mmWave remote radio heads and an RS CMQ200 shielding cube. The platform comes from a single supplier and integrates all system components including antennas cables feedthroughs and power sensors to ensure optimal and stable system parameters for reliable and reproducible FR2 production tests.
