Cellmetric introduces LTE test signal generator

Cellmetric's Modus 6 LTE test solution is compliant with the Third Generation Partnership Project standard (3GPP) Release 8 and supports both time domain duplex (TDD) and frequency domain duplex (FDD) modes.

This follows the 11 December 2008 functional freeze of LTE as part of 3GPP Release 8.

Cellmetric's Modus 6 LTE base station test signal generator consists of one or more Modus 6 air interface units providing the RF transmission, and LTE Composer, a PC-based application that generates the protocol and RF transmission scenarios to emulate eNodeB base station transmissions.

The LTE Composer application has been developed in close collaboration with Qasara, a specialist LTE technology development company.

The combination of the two tools provide a flexible solution for LTE user equipment (UE) and handset baseband and RF development and testing.

Cellmetric's LTE tester provides an RF and protocol sequence generation environment in which LTE RF and baseband chipset companies and mobile handset developers can test solutions against a repeatable and deterministic test stimulus over the air.

This capability includes RF channel emulation allowing the signal generator to generate an RF signal as seen either at the output of the base station transmit antennas or at the input of the user equipment's receive antennas.

Both transmit and receive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna configurations can be emulated by using two synchronised Modus 6 air interfaces.

Modus 6 supports LTE RF channel bandwidths of 1.4MHz, 3MHz, 5MHz and 10MHz in the band 824MHz to 2,155MHz that is FDD bands I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VIII, IX and X and TDD bands A, B and C.

The user has complete control over the physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) with respect to downlink control information (DCI) format types and search space locations.

The following physical transport channels, synch signals and reference signal are supported: physical control format indicator channel (PCFICH); physical hybrid automatic repeat request indicator channel (PHICH); physical downlink control channel (PDCCH); physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH); physical broadcast channel (PBCH); primary synchronisation channel (P-SCH); secondary synchronisation channel (S-SCH); and cell specific reference symbols (CRS).

Cellmetric will be demonstrating its LTE product at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, 16-19 February 2009.