u-blox & Rohde & Schwarz Validate Automotive GNSS for China
u-blox and Rohde & Schwarz have successfully validated u-blox’s latest automotive GNSS module in accordance with the recently published Chinese GB/T test requirement for automotive on-board GNSS positioning systems using an automated R&S SMBV100B based GNSS simulator solution. This cutting-edge solution will be demonstrated at Mobile World Congress 2025 in Barcelona.
GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) plays an increasingly important role in the automotive industry to enable new infotainment and autonomous driving applications. To ensure the required quality of on-board automotive GNSS systems, the Chinese National Automotive Standardization Technical Committee created the “requirements and test methods for on-board positioning system” guidelines. Rohde & Schwarz has contributed to the drafting of the standard. These requirements were released on November 28, 2024 with an “implementation date“ of June 2025. While the test specification is currently only recommended, it is expected to become mandatory within the upcoming Chinese eCall standard.
The automotive GNSS standard (GB/T 45086.1-2024) requires on-board positioning systems to pass a range of requirements such for tracking sensitivity, acquisition sensitivity, time to first fix, location accuracy and velocity accuracy, in different multi-constellation and BeiDou-only modes. The standard also defines special events such as week number rollover tests, leap second handling, radio frequency interference and unexpected pseudo range errors to test the overall robustness of the positioning system. In order to pass the test cases, the GNSS receiver must be able to process signals from two frequency bands simultaneously.
For the automotive ecosystem to validate compliance to this new test specification in an automated, standards-compliant, repeatable and timely manner, cooperation between suppliers in this industry becomes increasingly important.
This partnership enabled pre-compliance tests across the u-blox portfolio of automotive GNSS receivers, including the ZED-F9L and ZED-F9K, as well as the upcoming u-blox 20 product family. Andreas Thiel, Head of Business Units, and Co-founder at u-blox AG, remarked: “We are pleased that Rohde & Schwarz selected u-blox and our EVK-F9DR as reference kit to showcase this new automated test solution. With R&S advanced testing tools, automotive companies targeting the Chinese market can seamlessly validate their u-blox-based on-board positioning systems against GB/T 45068 and other standards.”
