Austin, TX. National Instruments has announced two collaborative efforts that will further the development of 5G wireless technologies and accelerate industry research.
First, NI and AT&T announced their collaboration on one of the fastest and most accurate tools for 5G mmWave channel characterization—a channel sounder, nicknamed the “Porcupine” internally within AT&T, that utilizes an architecture built on NI’s mmWave Transceiver System and provides real-time channel parameter measurement and monitoring capability.
Second, NI and NYU WIRELESS announced a nearly $1 million donation from NI to the university research team to further 5G development and, more specifically, mmWave communications, channel measurement, and channel emulation research for 5G communications.
NI, AT&T collaboration
NI said that 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 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 said they 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.
“Utilizing mmWave spectrum for mobile 5G presents many challenges which we believe can be solved,” said Marachel Knight, senior vice president of wireless network architecture and design, AT&T. “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.”
NI said the “Porcupine” 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. The 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 ms, with results displayed 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. The companies likened the performance to 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.
The capability of real-time measurement eliminates the need to repeat experiments or to adjust the equipment to take multiple measurements from one location. Since parameter extraction is done in real-time, the integrity of collected data can also be evaluated in real-time. Thus inaccurate data can be replaced immediately with a new set of measurements at the time of evaluation. Using other approaches, an entire evaluation day could potentially be lost if the collected data is post-processed.
To AT&T and NI’s knowledge, the speed and accuracy of this mmWave channel sounder makes it uniquely capable of making fast measurements of a channel. Thus, for example, the “Porcupine” allows the measurement of 5G mmWave frequencies via drive testing. This capability has previously remained out of reach for other mmWave channel sounders. As the 5G ecosystem looks at new use cases for 5G such as assisted driving, connected cars, and self-driving cars, the ability to study and model vehicular channels will become ever more critical.
“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,” said James Kimery, director of RF research and SDR marketing at NI. “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.”
NYU WIRELESS donation
As part of NI’s donation to NYU WIRELESS, NI will equip NYU WIRELESS labs with hardware and software from its flexible software defined radio (SDR) solutions, which researchers in both industry and academia are already using to help usher in the next generation of 5G wireless communications.
The gift brings together two key organizations in the race to create wireless technology that can deliver broadband speeds over the air. An important aspect of this partnership is the tight pairing of NI’s hardware and software, which reduces the time to ramp up an SDR system so the NYU WIRELESS group can go beyond simulations to build and evaluate concepts. Thus, NYU WIRELESS has identified system-level bottlenecks and solved problems that are critical in achieving high-throughput wireless systems.
In the last year, the FCC, 3GPP, and other standardization bodies for 5G fixed and mobile networks have earmarked mmWave frequencies. Only in the last few years has the mmWave radio spectrum—driven by research at NYU WIRELESS—become widely accepted as holding potential for the next generation of wireless networks. The technology is developing at a rapid pace and is in the midst of many innovations. Because much of the work around mmWave is still in its infancy, many research institutions and companies lack access to the mmWave SDRs and test and measurement equipment necessary to transition this technology from concept and simulation in the lab to a real-world environment.
5G will have a transformational impact on society by enhancing broadband access, connecting billions of devices and creating new applications and services in industries such as smart cities and infrastructures, medicine, and transportation.
“The NYU WIRELESS students and faculty were pioneers of early mmWave research,” said Kimery at NI. “Our goal with this donation is to help advance this research to solve the challenging problems the industry faces migrating to mmWave for 5G and beyond.”
“NYU WIRELESS and NI have had a long and productive working relationship as NI was a founding sponsor of our wireless center in 2012,” said Professor Theodore (Ted) Rappaport, founding director of NYU WIRELESS and the David Lee/Ernst Weber Professor of Electrical Engineering at NYU Tandon. “We are very pleased that NI continues to recognize the quality of our team and the impact our center is making through contributions to the global research community, particularly through our pioneering work on mmWave wireless communications and 5G technologies. We are extremely excited about the donation and our continuing role as a lead user for NI. We look forward to providing NI with feedback on its products and using them for further breakthroughs in the massively broadband future of mmWave wireless communications.”
A video of Professor Rappaport from NYU discussing the university’s work with NI can be found here.
“mmWave wireless prototyping demands platforms with enormous baseband processing power along with advanced antenna array systems,” said Sundeep Rangan, director of NYU WIRELESS and NYU Tandon associate professor of electrical and computer engineering. “These systems have been extremely difficult to develop in university labs. With NI’s SDR solutions, NYU WIRELESS will now be uniquely capable of rapid prototyping and experimentation to push the envelope in mmWave channel sounding, emulation and communication system design and drive the development and commercialization of mmWave technology in partnership with our network of 18 affiliate sponsors.”
