New Radio Communication Tester for 5G RedCap
At Mobile World Congress 2023 in Barcelona, Rohde & Schwarz showcased its radio communication tester in the new R&S CMX500 OBT lite hardware configuration, tailored specifically for lower data rate applications like 5G RedCap.
5G RedCap introduces true mid-tier eMTC into the 5G ecosystem. It will launch a new wave of devices that bridge the capability and complexity gap between low-speed NB-IoT and other, earlier standards, and the extremes in 5G today with an optimized design for mid-tier use cases such as sensors in industrial automation, smart cameras and wearables. 5G RedCap lightweight technologies include reducing the number of antennas on devices, making them less complex, using less spectrum bandwidth, consuming significantly less power, and working only in standalone (SA) mode compared to equipment designed for eMBB use-cases.
From its market leading position in eMTC and NB-IoT testing, Rohde & Schwarz has optimized the R&S®CMX500 OBT for IoT testing functionality. The enhancements on the R&S CMX500 OBT lite enable manufacturers of IoT chipsets, modems and end devices to verify the different aspects of 5G RedCap as defined in 3GPP Rel.17 in the R&D phase, pertaining to network access restrictions, bandwidth parts (BWP) and bandwidth part switching, power saving and other 5G RedCap specific protocol signaling procedures, among others.
In addition, the R&S CMX500 OBT lite tester can be used for 5G RedCap protocol conformance testing according to 3GPP which includes verification of key characteristics of a 5G RedCap terminal device such as RedCap user equipment identification, random access and measurement relaxation, RedCap terminal mobility and more. The first test case has already been verified. At the same time, Rohde & Schwarz also used R&S CMX500 OBT lite to verify the legacy feature of this 5G RedCap terminal device and re-verify the RAN5 use case of the access layer RedCap feature, thus ensuring the regular operation of this 5G RedCap terminal device in the network.
