Anritsu and Emite said they have achieved successful, repeatable MIMO over-the-air testing for carrier aggregation that utilized a reverberation chamber and tested 2×2 MIMO with isotropic urban-macro fading profiles in tests performed for an unnamed “leading U.S. carrier.”
Emite’s reverberation chamber was used, along with Anritsu’s MT8820C Radio Communication Tester and Anite‘s Propsim FS8 channel emulator. Emite is a testing company that is the brainchild of a professor from the Technical University of Cartegena in Spain.
David Sanchez-Hernandez, CEO and co-founder of Emite, said that “being able to test LTE CA + MIMO + UMA with a variety of auxiliary equipment units is a novelty worldwide, and brings MIMO OTA testing to a higher level of realism and applicability worldwide.”
With testing typically being conducted in an anechoic chamber that absorbs RF rather than allow complicated reflections, a reverberation chamber allows wave reflections and is argued to be a more realistic testing environment. MIMO OTA testing has been a point of contention in the industry with multiple candidates for standardization – there’s more on that topic in this panel discussion from last year’s LTE Innovation Summit.
In addition to the work on 2×2 MIMO OTA testing, Anritsu also said it tested 4×4 MIMO in an LTE-Advanced chip from GCT Semiconductor, using Anritsu’s MD8430A signaling tester. GCT Semiconductor has an FDD-TDD LTE Category 5/6/7 single chip, with what it says is the world’s first 4X4 MIMO carrier aggregation for LTE.
GCT used Anritsu’s signaling tester with control software to transmit up to 300 Mbps via a 4×4 MIMO connection and “were able to verify that their chip could reliably sustain the connection over an extended period of time.”
• The National Association of Broadcasters show was held this week in Las Vegas, and vendors showcased their video-testing offerings. Tektronix announced a collaboration with Sony on video over IP that includes support for Sony’s IP Live Production, as part of enabling broadcasters to move toward IP-based infrastructures and transition to ultra-HD or 4K video. Cabling interface limitations have been a hindrance to 4K adoption, Tektronix said, and Sony’s system offers a solution in the form of an AV over IP interface that would allow low latency and transmission over one 10G Ethernet cable, rather than the four HD-SDI cables that are typically needed.
• Rohde & Schwarz highlighted its 4K transmission support at the NAB show, and also this week announced the beginning of its 2015 international case study competition for next-generation networks, posing the question of what an NGN should look like. The annual competition is held by R&S and the German Association for Electrical, Electronic and Information Technologies.
• Keysight Technologies launched new 10BASE-T/100BASE-TX Ethernet protocol decoders for Ethernet networking systems this week and has a new method of implementation document up, a step-by-step guide for its cable-connector assembly compliance tests.
• If you missed these stories this week, check out a look inside CableLabs’ expanded RF testing facility, and interviews on testing trends and 5G ahead of next week’s LTE Innovation Summit.
