Test company Rohde & Schwarz and Qualcomm Technologies said that they have completed the first 5G New Radio location-based services session, with a Snapdragon X55 modem.
The 5G LBS testing consisted of successful verification of an assisted GPS (A-GPS) control plane LTE Positioning Protocol (LPP) test session over 5G New Radio. A device with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X55 5G modem and a Qualcomm radio frequency front-end “was able to successfully establish a 5G non-standalone connection and then perform GPS fixes according to 3GPP requirements,” according to R&S.
More precise location awareness is expected to be a major facet of 5G, both in terms of successful network and device interaction as well as for new services.
“Positioning in general will play a tremendous role in future 5G networks … enabling not only a vast amount of different location-based services and applications such as intelligent traffic system (ITS) and autonomous vehicles, but also valuable location-aware communication solutions like proactive radio resource management (RRM), for instance,” according to Finland’s Tampere University of Technology, which conducts research on the role of positioning and location-awareness in 5G networks.
“As services become more personalized, LBS is expected to play even a bigger role in 5G,” Rohde and Schwarz said, noting that there are also new, modernized satellite location technologies being integrated into mobile phones, such as GPS (L5) and GALILEO.
The 5G LBS testing was conducted with Rohde’s R&S TS-LBS test system, which is made up of its CMX500 and CMW500 radio communications testers and its SMBV100B vector signal generator. It supports 3G and 4G LBS testing as well, for both minimum performance and protocol tests, according to the company.
“Our goal was to provide our customers with a test solution that is extremely flexible and covers all aspects of LBS device testing for legacy and next generation technologies such as 5G NR,” said Bryan Helmick, Rohde & Schwarz product manager for mobile radio testers. He added that the effort by Rohde & Schwarz and Qualcomm “helps to validate LBS systems worldwide while furthering the commercial rollout of 5G NR.”