Aeroflex has outlined its initial strategy for the development of test products to support the new 3G Long-Term Evolution (3G LTE) standard, 3GPP’s vision for ensuring that 3G remains the dominant global cellular technology going forward into the next decade. The company made this announcement at this week’s 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

“It is generally accepted that, beyond the increasing deployment of important technology enhancements such as high-speed packet access (HSPA), both on the uplink and the downlink, significant further 3G evolution is required if it is to continue to dominate the global cellular market,” said Phil Windred of Aeroflex Test Solutions, Wireless Division. “3G will need to compete head-on with DSL in order to win the fixed/mobile substitution battle as well as compete with rapidly developing alternative technologies such as WiMAX for broadband wireless access and DVB-H for broadcast.”

The progress of the standardization work for 3G LTE is based on a set of high-level requirements, the principal aim of which is to further improve service provisioning and coverage, but at a reduced cost-per-bit compared to 3G for both operators and users. All this is to be achieved within the context of an enhanced user experience, operational flexibility that covers both existing and new frequency bands, improved data rates and reduced latency. As such, 3G LTE will provide the major leap forward, all of which brings with it significant testing challenges.

To obtain the all-important performance advantage for higher data rate mobile applications, the 3G LTE specifications will be based on a switch from W-CDMA to OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) modulation technology. This represents a significant change at the lowest level of the radio communications, and achieving synchronization will be a major challenge.

According to Aeroflex, it is designing a pair of test products, the Aeroflex TM500 LTE and Aeroflex 6401 LTE, which will support the physical layer testing of networks and mobile devices, respectively. The complete visibility into the lowest layers of the radio modem will allow users to diagnose the actual cause of a synchronization problem rather than just knowing that synchronization has failed.

Aeroflex has developed a powerful graphical user interface to allow both the TM500 LTE and the 6401 LTE to be easily configured without the need to write software to execute the test. The GUI facilitates parameter configuration through dialogue boxes, which allows users to select their values using engineering terms and units. Furthermore, the TM500 and 6401 have been designed from the start to be integrated into an automated test environment.

The implementation of multi-in multi-out (MIMO) antennas to improve the signal strength received by mobile devices from the network is a key new feature of 3G LTE. The supplier said that it will develop test features especially for MIMO to ensure that both the network and mobile devices are able to get the signaling right and then transmit and receive in full synchronization with the signaling.

“Historically, new technology roll-outs have been subjected to delays, often due to problems experienced when the new technology mobile devices are tested against the new technology networks,” said Phil Windred. “Aeroflex will provide powerful test tools to support both network and mobile device testing at the very earliest development stages of 3G LTE products. Experience shows that the earlier problems are detected, the lower the cost of correcting them. The TM500 and 6401 can play a major role in the mobile test industry in terms of providing diagnostic data geared specifically to the needs of 3G LTE that will not only ensure the early detection of implementation problems but also help accelerate the rate at which they are resolved.”