Rohde & Schwarz demos O-RU testing at i14y Lab summit

The i14y Lab is an open lab for interoperability testing of disaggregated telco systems, such as Open RAN, operated by a consortium of strong partners, led by Deutsche Telekom and supported with funding from the German Ministry of Digital and Transport (BMDV).

The i14y Lab Summit 2022, held at the lab’s location in Berlin offered guided tours through the lab, interactive sessions, roundtables and workshops and an afternoon of keynotes and panel discussion featuring lab partners, industry players and the German Ministry.

Rohde & Schwarz has contributed to the summit with a demo of O-RAN Radio Unit (O-RUs) conformance testing.

Network disaggregation as in O-RAN brings new challenges in terms of interoperability between the network equipment of dif­ferent vendors. The evolving O-RAN radio units (O-RU) need to conform with both 3GPP and O-RAN standards.

Fronthaul conformance tests, defined by the O-RAN ALLIANCE, ensure that the evolving O-RUs are interoperable with the O-RAN distributed unit (O-DU).

The fronthaul test solution showcased at the i14y Lab Summit 2022 has been developed jointly by Rohde & Schwarz and VIAVI Solutions and includes:

• The R&S SMW200A vector signal generator, R&S FSVA3000 signal and spectrum analyser and the R&S VSE signal analysis software from Rohde & Schwarz, to emulate a real-world radio environment by generating, capturing and analysing RF signals, extended for O-RAN applications.
• The TM500 O-RU Tester from VIAVI, implementing the O-RAN Distributed Unit (O-DU) side of the M-plane and C/U-plane functionality necessary to configure the interface with the O-RU and exchange of I/Q data over the Open Fronthaul.
• The O-RU Test Manager application from VIAVI, providing a single point of control for the integrated system, simplifying testcase workflow while allowing deeper data inspection and analysis as needed.

In addition, Rohde & Schwarz also presented mobile network testing solutions, which are used to ensure the successful deployment of O-RAN networks, such as R&S 5G STS (Site Testing Solution) and QualiPoc Android.

With these tools network owners perform passive and active measurements to analyse essential aspects of the end-to-end network performance including:

• Benchmarking O-RAN with single vendor RAN: The performance of open radio access networks can be compared with single vendor radio networks following ETSI harmonised methods. 
• Measurement of network synchronization: Network synchronisation is a potential source of interference in 5G TDD networks and needs to be verified also in O-RAN.

Alexander Pabst, Vice President Market Segment Wireless Communications at Rohde & Schwarz, says: “Disaggregation is one of the key ingredients of the evolution and convergence of networks. The i14y Lab has brought a collaboration space to Berlin that will strengthen Germany and Europe as a leading technology location. Innovation is deeply rooted in the DNA of Rohde & Schwarz. We have been instrumental to the success of wireless communication since its beginnings and we are happy to bring in our expertise here as well.”