NI and AT&T announced their collaboration on one of the world’s fastest and most accurate tools for 5G Millimeter Wave (mmWave) channel characterization.
mmWave frequencies look to play a big role in the future of 5G. They have already been earmarked by the FCC, 3GPP and other standardization bodies for 5G mobile networks. Channel measurements capture how wireless signals are affected in a given environment. For instance, channel measurements can show how signals reflect off of, or are blocked by, objects, such as trees, buildings, cars and even people.
Wireless channel characterization is very important for wireless researchers defining 5G technologies as it will help lay the foundation for the architecture and design of these new wireless networks. AT&T and NI believe this work will likely play a role in AT&T’s future 5G deployment, through the creation of accurate models that help map out the details of where AT&T places its network equipment to provide customers with the best possible mobile experience.
Nicknamed internally within AT&T as the “Porcupine,” the channel sounder is the first of its kind and is proprietary to AT&T. It provides real-time channel parameter measurement and monitoring capability. The channel sounder, designed by AT&T, utilizes an architecture based on NI’s mmWave Transceiver System. This one-of-a-kind design provides several key advantages. It allows angle-of-arrival (AoA) measurements that would typically take 15 minutes or more to be completed (using pan-tilt units) to be performed within 150 milliseconds and display the results in real-time.
The channel sounder uniquely captures channel measurements where all the data is acquired and processed in real-time. Other channel sounding approaches capture raw data and post process to characterize the channel while only giving one-measurement every 15 minutes. The “Porcupine” on the other hand can provide about 6,000 measurements in that time. It’s like capturing 15-minutes of action with a video instead of a still photo. A video tells the whole story, while a photo just shows a moment.
Marachel Knight, SVP, Wireless Network Architecture and Design
We identified early on that designing and real-time monitoring of mmWave spectrum needs to be much more precise than today’s cellular systems. With the help of NI’s flexible hardware and software platform, AT&T developed a new type of channel sounder and we’re using it to develop highly-advanced models that will work for our network.
James Kimery, Director of RF Research and SDR Marketing, NI
The NI mmWave Transceiver System and LabVIEW system design software enabled AT&T and NI to define and develop a channel measurement system unmatched in the industry today. The combination of PXIe and LabVIEW FPGA provided the bandwidth, data and signal processing capability, and flexibility necessary to meet the requirements of mmWave and expedite 5G deployment.
