Keysight Technologies, Inc., a leading technology company that delivers advanced design and validation solutions to help accelerate innovation to connect and secure the world, announced that the company’s 5G device test solutions now support 5G protocol conformance test cases for validating location-based services (LBS) mandated by both the Global Certification Forum (GCF) and PTCRB, a certification forum led by representatives from leading U.S. mobile operators.

LBS, a key feature of 5G new radio (NR), will help personalize services and support a wide range of commercial and public safety use cases. Accurate positioning of the user enables mobile operators, enterprises and defense organizations to deliver services that advance healthcare, road and aerial transportation, entertainment and homeland security. Keysight’s S8704A Protocol Conformance Toolset now supports test cases for validating location-based services. The toolset leverages the company’s UXM 5G Wireless Test Platform, which uses a complete protocol stack to emulate various mobility scenarios in a 5G network. 
 
5G Wireless Test Platforms
5G Wireless Test Platforms (image: Keysight Technologies)

“We’re pleased to support a comprehensive range of 5G NR protocol conformance test cases for validating and advancing location-based services,” said Muthu Kumaran, senior director at Keysight. “Keysight’s 5G device test solutions, built on common hardware and software platforms, support thousands of GCF and PTCRB test cases across 5G, in both non-standalone (NSA) and standalone (SA) mode, and legacy cellular technologies.”
5G device vendors need access to a comprehensive set of test cases, including LBS, to validate user equipment (UE) developed to support a diverse range of 5G services. LBS leverages different technologies such as global positioning system (GPS), global navigation satellite system (GNSS), Beidou, Galileo, beamforming, angle-based positioning and round-trip time (RTT) to geographically locate a user. Future applications such as drones and autonomous vehicles will depend on highly precise positioning services for reliable navigation and safe transportation of people as well as goods.  

Keysight’s holistic approach to 5G protocol conformance testing enables more than one hundred twenty chipset and device vendors to validate designs in accordance with the latest 3GPP specifications. Comprehensive access to 5G NR protocol test cases, covering technologies including 5G NR, LBS, IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), universal subscriber identity module (USIM) application toolkit (USAT), LTE and cellular vehicle to everything (C-V2X), enables this ecosystem to quickly and cost-effectively bring new products to market that meet specifications set by standards organizations as well as mobile operators.