Successful deployment requires exhaustive pre-deployment verification.
Today’s base-station receivers are orders of magnitude more complex than those of just a few years ago. Successful deployment requires exhaustive pre-deployment verification of mobility and MIMO/beamforming scenarios. The ongoing global deployment of TD-LTE (using complex 8 x n MIMO beamforming antenna techniques) further amplifies the difficulty of base-station testing. With Spirent channel emulators even complex testing becomes fast, accurate and easy.
What to Test
Key areas of verification include:
- MIMO & beamforming (up to and including 8 x 2 MU-MIMO)—each generation of technology brings increasingly complex antenna techniques. The easy-to-use Spirent systems that helped ensure successful FDD LTE deployment can just as easily address the challenges (e.g., phase accuracy requirements) of testing 8 x n TD-LTE MIMO Beamforming receivers.
- Virtual Drive Testing—not only saves on the high costs involved in iterated drive testing, but it provides a testing scenario that includes a reliably repeatable RF environment.
Spirent Solutions
A leader in the art and science of RF channel emulation, Spirent offers the most accurate, efficient and complete solutions for testing modern receivers including realistic MIMO emulation, OTA testing and virtual drive testing:
