5G RAN test, the most complete information package!

1.  5G still has a long way to go

This year is the first year of large-scale commercial use of 5G, and it is also the first year of the 5G era (2020-2030). The commercial development of 5G has just begun. The road ahead is still very wide and long. It is expected to have the following three major stages.

① In the first half of this year, 5G networks and terminals were dominated by NSA and began to evolve to SA. At present, 5G network coverage is not sufficient (focusing on covering major urban areas and main urban areas of ordinary cities and some business demand scenarios), the prices of 5G terminals and 5G modules are relatively high, and 5G services are concentrated on eMBB large-bandwidth services, such as video and game applications.

② From the second half of this year to 2021, 5G SA will achieve large-scale commercial use, URLLC will begin to be upgraded, edge computing will be deployed in an orderly manner on demand, and the 5G industry chain will gradually mature. 5G networks have achieved continuous coverage in urban areas and are gradually expanding to rural business demand scenarios. The prices of 5G terminals and 5G modules have dropped, and 5G services have begun to develop towards low-latency.

③ In the second half of 2021 and beyond, the breadth of 5G network coverage will continue to expand, and the coverage depth and thickness will gradually increase. It will have larger bandwidth, lower latency, and higher security, fully meeting the application needs of high speed, high reliability, and low latency. It will lay the foundation for the digital network intelligence of thousands of industries. 5G industry applications will grow explosively, and 5G will be truly integrated into all walks of life on a large scale.

2.  5G technology needs to continue to evolve

At present, it seems that the above-mentioned first-stage goals have been achieved. In retrospect, under the guidance of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group has carried out 5G technology research and development tests (divided into key technology verification, technical solution verification and system networking verification stages) since January 2016. Major system equipment such as Huawei, ZTE, Ericsson, and Datang Equipment manufacturers are deeply involved in jointly formulating equipment technical requirements and test specifications, comprehensively carrying out testing and verification, and accelerating the maturity of the 5G industry; chip companies such as Qualcomm and instrument companies such as Keysight Technology are actively participating in accelerating the construction of Rel-15 by conducting interconnection tests with system equipment manufacturers. 5G NR complete industry chain.

In the second and third stages mentioned above, in order to achieve the goal of promoting 5G to truly integrate into all industries, serve the public and even "5G changes society", it is urgent to accelerate the research on key core technologies of 5G.

As a complete version of 5G, Rel-16 introduces many enhanced system features and functions to further enhance the performance of eMBB and URLLC business applications. Specifically, the first is to enhance network carrying capacity through multi-antenna enhancement, license-free, higher frequency band, relay, fixed-mobile integration, etc.; the second is to enhance basic capabilities through SON/MDT, positioning, terminal energy saving, voice, slicing enhancement, automated operation, etc.; the third is to expand vertical industry applications through low-latency and high-reliability enhancement, Internet of Vehicles, Industrial Internet, vertical LAN, etc.

5G technology and standards are still developing and evolving. The standardized Rel-17 is about to be launched to target more vertical industry fields related to 5G. It will make the system functions that Rel-15 and Rel-16 have not been able to achieve and complete more comprehensive and more refined, so as to get closer to the 5G mobile communication vision of "full spectrum, full coverage, full application" interconnection of all things. Specifically, the first category of Rel-17 will be low-latency and high-reliability, industrial Internet, network-assisted terminal energy saving, multi-antenna technology enhancement, positioning, Internet of Vehicles, relay technology, higher spectrum communications, license-free solutions, satellite communications, service-oriented architecture enhancement, network slicing, network automation, SON edge computing and other delay technologies. Continuity projects; the second category of Rel-17 will be new projects such as multicast broadcasting, terminal direct communication (for emergency communications and commercial applications), multi-SIM terminal optimization, interactive services, small data transmission optimization solutions, coverage enhancement, large connection applications for medium speed and regional coverage, enabling new applications and new capabilities.

3.  Strong support: 5G test and measurement

Authoritative experts in the industry predict that 2021-2022 will be the construction phase of a complete 5G network based on Rel-16, and 2023-2025 will see the improvement of 5G network capabilities based on Rel-17.

It can be seen that, facing Rel-16 and Rel-17, the end-to-end 5G industry will enter a new and greater innovative development stage.

The entire 5G industry involves chips, terminals, base stations, 5G networks, chip design tool software, chip foundry lines, instrumentation (test and measurement), operating systems, APPs, etc. Among them, testing technology runs through the subsequent R&D, production, and acceptance of 5G base stations, chips, and terminals, and will directly affect the subsequent industrialization process of the entire 5G industry chain.

So it can be said that as far as communication test and measurement can go, 5G can go. It can be predicted that with the further development of 5G mobile broadband networks and the Internet of Things, especially for new applications in industry, medical and robot control, inter-vehicle communications and other fields to achieve the Internet of Everything, there will be an increasing demand for test equipment such as base station simulators, terminal simulators, RF conformance test systems, RRM conformance test systems, Massive MIMO signal analyzers, and Massive MIMO channel simulators. for example:

① A terminal emulator is urgently needed for system prototype verification. Subsequent system-level research and development and prototype verification of 5G communication technology urgently require the support of 5G terminal simulators. The simulator needs to meet the technical requirements of 5G multi-scenarios to complete the physical layer and high-level protocol simulation of 5G terminals. It can flexibly implement air interface technology solutions on the terminal side and cooperate with system equipment manufacturers to complete various 5G new technology tests.

② There is an urgent need for 5G signal simulation and analysis instruments. During equipment development and production, qualitative or quantitative testing or supervision of various parameters of processed components and semi-finished products is required. After the whole machine is manufactured, the function, performance and reliability of the whole machine need to be comprehensively tested. After testing, the data is sorted, analyzed, and evaluated, and the results are compared with the phenomena and problems in the development and production process. Only through the above-mentioned complex and precise testing operations can we ensure that more, faster, and better new 5G products with lower prices can be produced to supply the market.

For example, millimeter wave is one of the key technologies of 5G. The domestic millimeter wave frequency bands may include 24.75-27.5GHz and 37-42.5GHz. The application prospects are extremely broad, but especially radio frequency devices such as power amplifiers (PA) face severe challenges. Domestic efforts are being made to develop PA products that support the above frequency bands and 800MHz bandwidth. Traditional CMOS process PAs cannot provide high enough output power, while GaAs and GaN process PAs can support higher transmit power and larger modulation bandwidth in the millimeter wave frequency band. For the testing of 128 and 256 channels, and even the testing of 1024 channels in the future, the sharp increase in the number of channels will bring about a sharp increase in the cost of test equipment, as well as the reduction in test efficiency caused by the calibration and correction of consistency between channels. There is an urgent need for fast and economical microwave and millimeter wave test solutions. It is reported that leading international test and measurement companies such as Keysight Technology began to create a prototype test platform for 5G millimeter wave and ultra-wideband wireless communications as early as 2015. Based on SystemVue simulation software, they conducted the industry's earliest ultra-high-speed data throughput rate test at that time, and have accumulated deep technical accumulation so far.

③ There is an urgent need for 5G channel simulators to simulate complex channel environments. For example, subsequent theoretical and application research on Massive MIMO and related technologies, such as signal processing, encoding and decoding, modulation and demodulation, resource management, orthogonal pilot design, and three-dimensional beam forming, must be based on a reasonable wireless channel model. In order to study the 5G channel model of the new frequency band based on the channel measurement method, so as to understand the changing rules of the 5G channel in the actual environment, it is necessary to build a high-performance channel measurement platform and select measurement scenarios to carry out channel measurement activities according to the needs of the application scenario. The propagation environment of complex channels is harsh and has great dynamic randomness. There is an urgent need for high-quality 5G channel simulators to support the rapid development and deployment of 5G system baseband and radio frequency chips, base stations and terminal systems, and to support subsequent larger-scale 5G network construction and maintenance.

The evolution of 5G NR from Rel-15 to Rel-16 and Rel-17 is essentially the process of gradually realizing the three major application scenarios and eight key performance indicators of 5G proposed by the ITU. Ultra-wideband, ultra-high speed, multi-channel, full spectrum, real-life scenario simulation and even simulation pose severe challenges to test and measurement.

The subsequent rapid and steady development of the 5G industry requires the strong guarantee of high-quality testing and measurement. According to the 5G WeChat public platform (ID: angmobile), giant companies with top advantages in the test and measurement market have formed a 5G test and measurement product system with a complete range of categories and the highest performance in the world. Now they bring together 5G NR A very complete information package on RAN testing for industry reference, covering basic knowledge of 5G technology, mobile communication network operators' 5G deployment testing and air interface testing, 5G signal generation and analysis, 5G antenna and component testing, 5G deployment drive testing, 5G base station manufacturing testing, and testing for 5G quality assurance (5G NR conformance test/O-RAN radio frequency test tutorial/5G core network verification best practices/UEE terminal emulator tutorial/5G air interface field test system with phased array antenna/channel simulation solution), etc.

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