5G LBS features verified on R&S TS-LBS test solution

Photo: Rohde & schwarz

Rohde & Schwarz and MediaTek have verified new location-based services (LBS) features for 5G new radio (NR), which are now available on the R&S TS-LBS test solution.

The features will improve emergency caller location and support LBS-related use cases in challenging indoor and outdoor environments with both satellite-based and terrestrial technologies. The R&S TS-LBS now support these and other 3GPP Release 16 network-based positioning features.

A 5G chipset from MediaTek also has been verified for Release 16, which ensures the chip’s  positioning features.

The two companies verified the NR positioning reference signals (NR-PRS), which are central to network-based positioning features such as round-trip time (RTT), time difference of arrival in uplink and downlink (UL- TDOA and DL-TDOA), or angle of arrival and departure (AoA and AoD), and which meet the 5G requirements for indoor and outdoor positioning use cases.

With R&S TS-LBS supporting these features, mobile device and chipset manufacturers as well as test houses and network operators can carry out verification for GCF, PTCRB and network-operator certification using a single test solution.

About the R&S TS-LBS System

The R&S TS-LBS is a test system for testing GNSS and network-based positioning. It consists of an R&S CMX500 OBT one-box signaling tester as the network simulator and an R&S SMBV100B GNSS simulator.

The R&S CMX500 OBT setup provides full network simulation capabilities including the support of multiple 4G or 5G cells at a time. In addition, it provides LBS assistance data to the DUT while the R&S SMBV100B simulates the GNSS satellites.

The R&S TS-LBS test system can be used for pre-conformance tests and to obtain GCF and PTCRB certification as well as network-operator-specific certification acceptance and validated tests.

“Adding network-based positioning features such as DL-TDOA based on NR-PRS to the existing satellite based location signals shows the advanced level of our test solution,” said Christoph Pointner, senior vice president, Mobile Radio Testers, Rohde & Schwarz. “We are happy to continue our collaboration with MediaTek to push 5G location-based services further for 3GPP Release 16.”