3GPP officially launched the first draft of the 5G NR standard in December 2017. The next major step in building a new 5G ecosystem requires equipment and devices to test their implementations that conform to this standard with each other to achieve interoperability. Interoperability Device Testing (IODT) can be established and maintained using a robust communication link capable of achieving 5G performance under prescribed test conditions.
To that end, NI and Samsung agreed to collaborate on IODT, in which Samsung's commercial 5G NR-capable base station connects to an NI-developed 28 GHz wireless UE test in real time. The NI UE test exchanges messages with the base station to establish a link and then validates the functionality and downlink performance as dictated by 3GPP. The UE test uses NI's 28 GHz mmWave transceiver system with a compatible 5G NR Phase 1 protocol stack developed using LabVIEW system design software.
This collaboration will explore the 5G NR standard at maximum performance levels using a full 2x2 multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) configuration.
