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The European journal for the microwave and wireless design engineer

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Contents

10, 145G: Massive MIMO and Beamforming: The Signal Processing Behind the 5G Buzzwords

EMC and Electronic Enclosure Design

21, 22Radar: Low-Bandwidth Radar Improves Detection of Objects

The Weakest Link? How to Ensure Antennas Are Not the Single Point of Failure in Challenging Deployments

RF - Microwave

MW8

News

3D printed metamaterials boast unique microwave and optical properties

4News

Gilat demonstrates 5G over a LEO satellite

Smart 140 GHz MIMO radar adds machine learning

16, 19Inside the LoRaWAN network technology

5G: Q&A – Stealth 5G

23Products

Spectrum analyzers deliver high-speed analysis, ideal for 5G NR

IDT expands RF beamforming portfolio

Editor In ChiefJean-Pierre JoostingTel. +44-7800 [email protected]

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Armed with the world’s largest selection of in-stock, ready to ship RF components, and the brains to back them up, Pasternack Applications Engineers stand ready to troubleshoot your technical issues and think creatively to deliver solutions for all your RF project needs. Whether you’ve hit a design snag, you’re looking for a hard to find part or simply need it by tomorrow, our Applications Engineers are at your service.

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USA (949) 261-1920 AUSTRIA (49) 89 4161 5994 0 BELGIUM (31) 229 50 34 78 CZECH REPUBLIC (420) 235 365 207 DENMARK (46) 8 554 909 50 FINLAND (46) 8 554 909 50 FRANCE (33) 1 47 95 99 60

GERMANY (49) 89 4161 5994 0 IRELAND (44) 0 1420 544789 ISRAEL (972) 9 741 7277 ITALY (39) 06 4071603 KAZAKHSTAN (7) 495 961 34 43 LUXEMBOURG (31) 229 50 34 78 NETHERLANDS (31) 229 50 34 78

NORWAY (46) 8 554 909 50 POLAND (48) 22 855 34 32 PORTUGAL (34) 91 636 3939 RUSSIA (7) 495 961 34 43 SLOVAKIA (420) 235 365 207 SPAIN (34) 91 636 3939 SWEDEN (46) 8 554 909 50

SWITZERLAND (49) 89 4161 5994 0 TURKEY (90) 216 504 07 87 UKRAINE (7) 495 961 34 43 UNITED KINGDOM (44) 0 1420 544789

Gilat demonstrates 5G over a LEO satelliteA test conducted by tier-1 European ope-rator at the University of Surrey’s 5G In-novation Centre has de-monstrated 5G backhaul over a LEO satellite. A high throughput mo-dem from Gilat Satellite Networks has enabled the first ever demons-tration of 5G services over a Low Earth Orbit or LEO satellite. The successful test was conducted with a tier-1 European ope-rator last month using Telesat’s Phase 1 LEO satellite connected to the University of Surrey’s 5G test bed network.

The demonstration included video chatting, web browsing and simul-taneous streaming of up to 8K video. The project team also transferred 4K video to the edge of the 5G network, which is a key 5G future use case. Live testing of these content rich data streams was achieved using 5G cellular technology that offers many benefits but which requires an advanced backhaul

solution that can quickly and cost effec-tively extend these benefits to subscri-

bers beyond major cities. The testing confirmed that this required 5G backhaul can be provided by Gilat modem tech-nology working with Telesat’s Phase 1 LEO satellite.

"This demonstration confirms that Telesat’s state-of-the-art LEO architec-ture delivers on the promise of latency sensitive and high bit rate applications such as in 5G connectivity," said Michel Forest, Director of Engineering.

Recently, according to a report by NSR, Gilat achieved 35% market share in modem shipments for cellular backhaul over satellite, making it the world-leader in shipping products for cellular backhaul over satellite.

www.gilat.comwww.nsr.com

Thales extends radar development with PT LenThales has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with PT Len, Indonesia's leading defence electronics partner, in the area of radar development, a key pillar and one of the seven strategic industries to be developed in Indonesia as outlined by the Ministry of Defence.

Through this MoU, Thales will be pro-viding maintenance to its existing fleet of air defence radars currently in operation with the Air Force, as well as support PT Len in training and transfer-of-technology, to build up local expertise in radar mana-gement and maintenance.

The MoU further extends Thales and PT Len's years of collaboration in the defence sector and in particular radar. This includes earlier MoUs signed for research and transfer-of-technology in naval combat management systems. Outside of the defence sector, Thales and PT Len are also collaborating on delivering advanced signalling systems for railway projects in Indonesia and the export market, through a separate MoU signed in 2018.

www.thalesgroup.com

Altiostar closes financing for open virtual RAN for 4G/5GIn order to bring virtual RAN (open vRAN) technology to 4G/5G, Altiostar, has closed a $114 million Series C round of financing with Rakuten coming on board as an in-vestor. In early 2018, Qualcomm Ventures LLC and Tech Mahindra also participated in the C-round as investors. This financing will be used to expand Altiostar’s virtual RAN to encompass 4G and 5G products allowing telecom operators to build end-to-end web-scale cloud native networks.

"Our unique open vRAN is designed to improve the quality of experience, en-hance spectral efficiency and significantly reduce Total Cost of Ownership," said Ashraf M. Dahod, president and chief executive officer at Altiostar.

In their recent report, Worldwide 5G Network Infrastructure Forecast, 2018–2022, IDC expects the largest percentage of overall investment to be spent in the RAN portion of 5G networks, which is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 156.6% between 2018 and

2022. Virtualization is seen by operators as a means to convert networks into a software-defined infrastructure that can scale with the agility required to meet this explosion of devices and applications.

Concurrently with this financing round, Altiostar has agreements solidifying its relationship with each of its strategic partners. Rakuten, which is collaborating with

Altiostar on the development of 5G, is deploying the Altiostar virtualized RAN in their mobile network.

Qualcomm Technologies Inc., which has entered into a development colla-boration agreement with Altiostar.

Tech Mahindra, which has signed a value-added-reseller/system integrator contract with Altiostar.

https://global.rakuten.com/corpwww.qualcomm.comwww.techmahindra.comwww.altiostar.com

Qualcomm, China Unicom drive 5G rolloutQualcomm Technologies, Inc., a sub-sidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated is supporting China Unicom’s 5G rollout in collaboration with device OEMs nubia, OnePlus, OPPO, Vivo, Xiaomi and ZTE – all of which are participating with devices powered by the flagship Snapdragon 855 Mobile Platform with the X50 5G Mo-dem with integrated RF transceiver and Qualcomm's RF front-end.

The companies recently showcased readiness for the rollout of 5G devices and networks in China via live 5G de-monstrations at the 2019 China Unicom Partner Conference that took place in Shanghai. The live demonstrations featured over-the-air (OTA) connections and applications using China Unicom’s live 5G network and OEM mobile devices using Qualcomm Technologies’ products. This collaboration highlights efforts to accelerate the availablity of 5G mobile devices and services in China starting this year.

www.qualcomm.com

News

Largest Selection p Same-Day Shipping p Expert Technical Support p

You Engineer the Future. We’ll Supply the Components... Today!

Armed with the world’s largest selection of in-stock, ready to ship RF components, and the brains to back them up, Pasternack Applications Engineers stand ready to troubleshoot your technical issues and think creatively to deliver solutions for all your RF project needs. Whether you’ve hit a design snag, you’re looking for a hard to find part or simply need it by tomorrow, our Applications Engineers are at your service.

Pasternack.com

USA (949) 261-1920 AUSTRIA (49) 89 4161 5994 0 BELGIUM (31) 229 50 34 78 CZECH REPUBLIC (420) 235 365 207 DENMARK (46) 8 554 909 50 FINLAND (46) 8 554 909 50 FRANCE (33) 1 47 95 99 60

GERMANY (49) 89 4161 5994 0 IRELAND (44) 0 1420 544789 ISRAEL (972) 9 741 7277 ITALY (39) 06 4071603 KAZAKHSTAN (7) 495 961 34 43 LUXEMBOURG (31) 229 50 34 78 NETHERLANDS (31) 229 50 34 78

NORWAY (46) 8 554 909 50 POLAND (48) 22 855 34 32 PORTUGAL (34) 91 636 3939 RUSSIA (7) 495 961 34 43 SLOVAKIA (420) 235 365 207 SPAIN (34) 91 636 3939 SWEDEN (46) 8 554 909 50

SWITZERLAND (49) 89 4161 5994 0 TURKEY (90) 216 504 07 87 UKRAINE (7) 495 961 34 43 UNITED KINGDOM (44) 0 1420 544789


Semiconductor laser as an RF transmitter promises fast Wi-FiResearchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences transmitted a recording of Martin's classic "Volare" wirelessly via a semiconductor laser—the first time a semiconductor laser has been used as a radio frequency transmitter.

In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers demonstrated a laser that can emit microwaves wi-relessly, modulate them, and receive external radio frequency signals.

Unlike conventional lasers, which emit a single frequency of light, laser frequency combs emit multiple frequen-cies simultaneously, evenly spaced to resemble the teeth of a comb. In 2018, the researchers discovered that inside the laser, the different frequencies of light beat together to generate microwave radiation. The light inside the cavity of the laser caused electrons to oscillate

at microwave frequencies—which are within the communications spectrum.

The first thing the new device needed to transmit microwave signals was an antenna. So, the resear-chers etched a gap into the top electrode of the device, creating a dipole antenna. Next, they modulated the frequency comb to encode information on the mi-crowave radiation created

by the beating light of the comb. Then, using the antenna, the microwaves are radiated out from the device, containing the encoded information. The radio signal is received by a horn antenna, filtered and sent to a computer.

The researchers also demonstrated that the laser radio could receive signals. The team was able to remotely control the behavior of the laser using mi-crowave signals from another device.

www.seas.harvard.edu

Telit to advance private LTE networksIn a first for a global module vendor, Telit has joined the CBRS Alliance, an organization focused on supporting the development, commercialization and adoption of LTE networks and 5G for the 3.5 GHz Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) band.

In February 2018, Telit announced the LM960, which claims to be the first Gigabit mPCIe adapter card supporting LTE Advanced Pro Category 18. Featu-ring download speeds of up to 1.2 Gbps and global coverage, the LM960 is also the first mobile broadband adapter card to support CBRS – band 48. This makes it ideal for OEMs that want to serve emer-ging private LTE networks with routers, gateways and other devices connecting to LTE access points, small cells and other CBRS infrastructure."With the LM960, and now as a member of the CBRS Alliance, Telit continues to pioneer the private LTE market with industry-first and industry-leading tech-nologies," said Manish Watwani, Chief Marketing and Product Officer, Telit.

www.telit.com

Cree expands SiC capacity to address EV and 5G demandPart of its long term growth startegy and to address 5G and EV demand, Cree, Inc., will invest up to $1 billion to expand its silicon carbide capacity with the development of a state-of-the-art, auto-mated 200mm silicon carbide fabrication facility and a materials mega factory at its headquarters in Durham, N.C.

The expansion is expected to gene-rate up to a 30-fold increase in silicon carbide (SiC) wafer fabrication capacity and 30-fold increase in SiC materials production to meet the expected market growth by 2024. Upon completion in 2024, the facilities will substantially increase the company’s silicon carbide materials capability and wafer fabrica-tion capacity, allowing wide bandgap semiconductor solutions that enable the dramatic technology shifts underway within the automotive, communications infrastructure and industrial markets.

The plan delivers additional capa-city for its industry-leading Wolfspeed

silicon carbide business with the build out of an existing structure as a 253,000 square-foot, 200mm power and RF wafer fabrication facility as an initial step to serve the projected market de-mand. The new North Fab is designed to be fully automotive qualified and will provide nearly 18 times more surface area for manufacturing than exists today, initially opening with the produc-tion of 150mm wafers. The company will convert its existing Durham fabrication and materials facility into a materials mega factory.

“These silicon carbide manufacturing mega-hubs will accelerate the innovation of today’s fastest growing markets by producing solutions that help extend the range and reduce the charge times for electric vehicles, as well as support the rollout of 5G networks around the world,” said Gregg Lowe, CEO of Cree.

www.cree.com

Ericsson and Swisscom switch on large-scale 5GTo support commercially available smart-phones, Ericsson and Swisscom have switched on the first large-scale commer-cial 5G network in Europe. The commer-cial 5G network, and related 5G ser-vices, are now available in 54 cities and communities in Switzerland, including the major population areas: Zürich, Bern, Geneva, Basel, Lausanne and Lucerne.

The long-term strategic partners went live with the network in the first minute of April 17, following Swisscom's securing of a commercial 5G license.

Swisscom previously announced its aim to have its 5G network operational all over Switzerland by the end of 2019 – with close to 90 percent nationwide population coverage. This will be achie-ved by using Ericsson Spectrum Sharing software that dynamically shares spec-trum between 4G and 5G carriers based on traffic demand. This will enable fast nationwide 5G coverage with 5G-ready 4G radios.

www.ericsson.com

News


News

Smart 140 GHz MIMO radar adds machine learningResearch group, imec has demonstrated a compact highly-sensitive 140 GHz MIMO radar system for gesture recognition and non-contact monitoring.

The ultra-fine resolution of the MIMO setup will also allow the detection of micro-skin movements re-lated to vital signs to en-hance applications such as non-contact driver monitoring or patient monitoring.

The 140 GHz radar-on-chip prototype system is small and offers high radar performance, especially in resolution and motion sensitivity. The radar operates up to 10m range, with 15mm range resolution and 10 GHz of RF bandwidth. Multiple antenna paths are incorporated to enable a complete (virtual) 1x4 MIMO configuration for angular target sepa-ration. The transceiver chip features on-chip antennas, and are integrated in 28nm bulk CMOS technology, enabling low-cost, high volume production. The machine learning capabilities are

intended to demonstrate the feasibility of the radar to detect and classify small

motions based on Dop-pler information.

Being insensitive to lighting conditions and preserving privacy (a radar can so far not recognize humans), radar has particular advantages

over other types of motion sensors. Imec developed a specific machine learning algorithm based on a multi-layer neural network including an LSTM layer and using supervised learning to train the in-ference model by using in-house labelled recordings of more than 25 people, inclu-ding several captures for each of 7 diffe-rent gestures. Against the experimental dataset, the model classifies the recorded 7 gestures and predicts the right gesture at least 94% of the time. Vital signs can also be measured with very high precision due to the high radio frequency.

www.imec.com

EchoStar and RigNet partner on mobile satellite servicesEchoStar Mobile and RigNet have announced an agreement to promote and distribute EchoStar Mobile IP-based Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) for voice and data to RigNet's European customer base.

RigNet will distribute equipment and provide secure, reliable and cost-ef-fective connectivity services via the EchoStar XXI spacecraft operating in the S-band spectrum (with a comple-mentary ground component) licensed in the 28 European member states. EchoStar Mobile is a mobile operator providing mobile satellite connectivity across Europe through a hybrid satellite and terrestrial network and a subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation. RigNet is a leading provider of ultra-secure, intelli-gent networking systems.

Equipment for the EchoStar Mobile network, including advanced IP voice and data terminals, is designed and manu-factured by EchoStar subsidiary Hughes Network Systems, LLC.

www.echostarmobile.com

Partnership introduces laser communication for nanosatellitesTESAT, KSAT and GomSpace have partnered up to introduce full optical communications capability for small satellite missions and space-based services. Until now this technology has mainly been used on large and expen-sive satellites but has now small enough for use on miniature satellites and new constellations. This latest technology will be launched in the PIXL demonstration mission later in 2019.

Optical communication technology offers a number of important benefits that will add to the value of future space-based infrastructures – including support for dramatically higher data rates and improved security through narrow beam-widths. In a bid to accelerate market in-troduction of the technology by the end of this year, the partners have put their competences together to demonstrate that optical downlinks are ready to be used as operational downlink technology for nanosatellites.

TESAT, a leader in optical satellites communications, has successfully minia-turised the technology to allow its efficient use on satellites down to 3 kg and with data rates from 100 Mbps to 10 Gbps.

KSAT, the leading ground station network provider for new space customers through its KSATLite offering, is committed to building out a compatible network of optical ground stations and scaling it with increasing customer demand.

GomSpace, a leader in nanosatel-lite design and manufacturing, has – in collaboration with TESAT – validated compatibility and integration between GomSpace satellite busses and TESAT’s miniaturised optical terminals.

The PIXL demonstration mission will be launched later in 2019 to demons-trate the full capability.

www.tesat.dewww.ksat.nowww.gomspace.com

Rohde & Schwarz partners with Helmut Schmidt UniversityA Rohde & Schwarz company, ipoque GmbH, has announced a strategic research partnership with Helmut Sch-midt University in Hamburg to focus on artificial intelligence, machine learning and big data analytics in the field of network analytics and security.

The Rohde & Schwarz subsidiary provides market-leading network analytics for more secure, reliable and efficient networks. The joint research programme will run for 4 years and aims to translate research into market-lea-ding products.

Keeping the networks of the future secure and reliable is an important challenge as IP traffic rates, protocol complexity and the number of cyberat-tacks continually increase. The poten-tial of future technologies to further enhance network analytics and security will be a main topic in the partnership.

www.ipoque.comwww.rohde-schwarz.com

News


The way ahead in Radar / EW testing Stay ahead of technological advancements in radar and EW with solutions that deliver precise analysis, clean signal sources and high-resolution measurements.

Multifunctional radar system testing Drone detection radar testing Smart jammer testing Radar component testing Scenario generation and receiver testing Active electronically scanned array testing

More information: www.rohde-schwarz.com/radar

Visit us at:IMS2019booth 642

0015355-046_M_Radar_EW_testing_MWee_210x146_e_190510.indd 1 10.05.2019 17:25:12

A team of engineers at Tufts University has developed fabrication methods that enable the creation of 3D printed metamaterials with unique microwave or optical properties that go beyond what is possible using conventional optical or electronic materials. These fabrication methods demonstrate the potential, both present and future, of 3D printing to expand the range of geometric designs and material composites that lead to devices with novel optical properties. In one case, the researchers drew inspira-tion from the compound eye of a moth to create a hemispherical device that can absorb electromagnetic signals from any direction at selected wavelengths.

Metamaterials extend the capabilities of conventional materials in devices by making use of geometric features arranged in repeating patterns at scales smaller than the wavelengths of energy being detected or influenced. New developments in 3D printing technology are making it possible to create many more shapes and patterns of metama-terials, and at ever smaller scales. In a study, published in the journal Micro-systems & Nanoengineering, resear-chers at the Nano Lab at Tufts describe a hybrid fabrication approach using 3D printing, metal coating and etching to create metamaterials with complex geometries and novel functionalities for wavelengths in the microwave range.

In one example, the researchers created an array of tiny mushroom shaped structures, each holding a small patterned metal resonator at the top of a stalk. This particular arrangement permits microwaves of specific frequen-cies to be absorbed, depending on the chosen geometry of the "mushrooms" and their spacing. Use of such metama-terials could be valuable in applications such as sensors in medical diagnosis and as antennas in telecommunications or detectors in imaging applications.

Other devices developed by the authors include parabolic reflectors that selectively absorb and transmit cer-tain frequencies. Such concepts could simplify optical devices by combining the functions of reflection and filtering into one unit.

"The ability to consolidate functions using metamaterials could be incre-

dibly useful," said Sameer Sonkusale, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Tufts University's School of Engineering who heads the Nano Lab at Tufts and is corresponding author of the study. "It's possible that we could use these materials to reduce the size of spectrometers and other optical measuring devices so they can be de-signed for portable field study."

The products of combining optical/electronic patterning with 3D fabrication of the underlying substrate are refer-red to by the authors as metamaterials embedded with geometric optics, or MEGOs. Other shapes, sizes, and orientations of patterned 3D printing can be conceived to create MEGOs that absorb, enhance, reflect or bend waves in ways that would be difficult to achieve with conventional fabrication methods.

There are a number of technologies now available for 3D printing, and the current study utilizes stereolithogra-phy, which focuses light to polymerize photo-curable resins into the desired shapes. Other 3D printing technologies, such as two photon polymerization, can provide printing resolution down to 200 nanometers, which enables the fabrica-tion of even finer metamaterials that can detect and manipulate electromagnetic

signals of even smaller wavelengths, potentially including visible light.

"The full potential of 3D printing for MEGOs has not yet been realized," said Aydin Sadeqi, graduate student in Sanku-sale's lab at Tufts University School of Engineering and lead author of the study. "There is much more we can do with the current technology, and a vast potential as 3D printing inevitably evolves."

Other authors contributing to the research include Hojatollah Rezaei Nejad, post-doctoral fellow, and Rachel Owyeung, graduate student at Tufts University School of Engineering.

REFERENCESadeqi, A., Nejad, H.R., Owyeung, R.E., Sonkusale, S., "Three-dimensio-nal printing of metamaterial embedded geometrical optics," Microsystems & Nanoengineering, (April 8, 2019).

https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41378-019-0053-6

www.tufts.edu

This work was supported by U.S. Army Cooperative Agreement #W911QY-15-2-0001, and the Office of Naval Research grant #N0014-15-1-2550.

3D printed metamaterials boast unique microwave and optical properties

News

The way ahead in Radar / EW testing Stay ahead of technological advancements in radar and EW with solutions that deliver precise analysis, clean signal sources and high-resolution measurements.

Multifunctional radar system testing Drone detection radar testing Smart jammer testing Radar component testing Scenario generation and receiver testing Active electronically scanned array testing

More information: www.rohde-schwarz.com/radar

Visit us at:IMS2019booth 642

0015355-046_M_Radar_EW_testing_MWee_210x146_e_190510.indd 1 10.05.2019 17:25:12

5G field trial for broadcast transmission kicks off in BavariaEntering its test phase, 5G TODAY is a new large-area 5G field trial for 5G broadcasting taking place in the Bavarian alpine region covered by two high-performance transmitters located in Ismaning and on the top of the Wendelstein mountain.

Both transmitters operate with 100 kilowatts effective output power (technically: ERP). With the help of the high transmission towers and the high power of the transmitters (High-Power-High-Tower-Concept, HPHT), the large-area broadcasting of TV programs can be tested based on the new broadcast mode FeMBMS (Further evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service). The FeMBMS broadcast mode allows far-reaching and inexpensive distribution of popular content across large cove-rage areas with a radius of up to 60 kilometres.

The project partners Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation (Bayerischer Rundfunk, BR), the Broadcast Technology Institute IRT, Kathrein, Rohde & Schwarz as well as Telefónica Germany are jointly testing broadcasting options for future 5G technology – intending to lay the foundation for the efficient transmission of broadcasting content in the 5G networks of the future.

What has been lacking so far in the distribution of broad-casting content is an efficient and direct way of reaching users with live and linear content on mobile devices without additio-

nal costs for them. That is why BR together with IRT and three industry leaders launched the 5G TODAY project in 2017. The project will test how 5G broadcasting can be used to create an overlay infrastructure that can simultaneously serve millions of future 5G mobile devices. The aim is neither to burden the regu-lar mobile networks nor to incur additional costs for citizens.

HPHT transmitters from Rohde & Schwarz are used for the 5G radio transmission. "With this forward-looking concept, broadcasters can enjoy the same advantages in the distribution of video content over 5G networks as they do in classic broad-casting, such as high video quality, short latency times and long range. With our high-performance transmitters, we make a de-cisive contribution to the operation of the field trial," said Peter Riedel, COO of Rohde & Schwarz. The two test transmitters are operated as a Single Frequency Network (SFN) in channel 56/57 (750-760 MHz).

The test operation of 5G TODAY will run from now on until autumn 2019, after which the results and further exploitation of the findings will be evaluated. The project ends on October 31st, 2019.

www.5g-today.com

News


MIMO and Beamforming

INTRODUCTIONOur thirst for high speed mobile data is insatiable. As we saturate the available RF spectrum in dense urban environ-ments, it’s becoming apparent that there’s a need to increase the efficiency of how we transmit and receive data from wireless base stations.

Base stations consisting of large numbers of antennas that simul-taneously communicate with multiple spatially separated user terminals over the same frequency resource and exploit multipath propagation are one option to achieve this efficiency sa-ving. This technology is often referred to as massive MIMO (multiple-input, multiple-output). You may have heard massive MIMO described as beamfor-ming with a large number of antennas. But this raises the question ... what is beamforming?

BEAMFORMING VERSUS MASSIVE MIMOBeamforming is a word that means different things to different people. Beamforming is the ability to adapt the radiation pattern of the antenna array to a particular scenario. In the cellular communications space, many people think of beamforming as steering a lobe of power in a particular direction toward a user, as shown in Figure 1. Relative amplitude and phase shifts are applied to each antenna element to allow for the output signals from the antenna array to coherently add together for a particular transmit/receive angle and destructively cancel each other out for other signals. The spatial environment that the array and user are in is not generally considered. This is indeed beamforming, but is just one specific implementation of it.

Massive MIMO can be conside-red as a form of beamforming in the more general sense of the term, but is quite removed from the traditional form. Massive simply refers to the large number of antennas in the base station antenna array. MIMO refers to the fact that multiple spatially separated users are catered for by the antenna array in

the same time and frequency resource. Massive MIMO also acknowledges that in real-world systems, data trans-mitted between an antenna and a user terminal—and vice versa—undergoes filtering from the surrounding environ-ment. The signal may be reflected off buildings and other obstacles, and these reflections will have an asso-ciated delay, attenuation, and direction of arrival, as shown in Figure 2. There may not even be a direct line of sight between the antenna and the user ter-minal. It turns out that these nondirect transmission paths can be harnessed as a power for good.

In order to take advantage of the multiple paths, the spatial channel between antenna elements and user terminals needs to be characterized. In literature, this response is generally referred to as channel state information (CSI). This CSI is effectively a collec-tion of the spatial transfer functions between each antenna and each user terminal. This spatial information is gathered in a matrix (H), as shown in Figure 3. The next section looks at the concept of CSI and how it is collec-ted in more detail. The CSI is used to digitally encode and decode the data transmitted from and received by the antenna array.

CHARACTERIZING THE SPATIAL CHANNEL BETWEEN BASE STATION AND USERAn interesting analogy is to consider a balloon being popped at one location and the sound of this pop, or impulse, being recorded at another, as shown in Figure 4. The sound recorded at the microphone position is a spatial impul-se response that contains information unique to the particular position of both the balloon and the microphone in the surrounding environment. The sound that is reflected off obstacles is atte-nuated and delayed compared to the direct path.

If we expand the analogy to com-pare to the antenna array/user termi-nal case, we need more balloons, as seen in Figure 5. Note that in order to

characterize the channel between each balloon and the microphone, we need to burst each balloon at a separate time so the microphone doesn’t record the reflections for different balloons overlapping. The other direction also needs to be characterized, as shown in Figure 6. In this instance, all the

Massive MIMO and Beamforming: The Signal Processing Behind the 5G BuzzwordsBy Claire Masterson, ADI

Figure 1: Traditional beamforming.

Figure 2: Multipath environment between antenna array and user.

Figure 3: Channel state information needed to characterize a massive MIMO system.



recordings can be done simultaneously when the balloon is popped at the user terminal position. This is clearly a lot less time consuming!

In the RF space, pilot signals are used for characterizing the spatial channels. The over-the-air transmis-sion channels between antennas and user terminals are reciprocal, meaning the channel is the same in both direc-tions. This is contingent on the system operating in time division duplex (TDD) mode as opposed to frequency divi-sion duplex (FDD) mode. In TDD mode, uplink and downlink transmissions use the same frequency resource. The reciprocity assumption means the chan-nel only needs to be characterized in one direction. The uplink channel is the obvious choice, as just one pilot signal needs to be sent from the user terminal and is received by all antenna elements. The complexity of the channel esti-mation is proportional to the number of user terminals, not the number of antennas in the array. This is of critical importance given the user terminals may be moving, and hence the channel estimation will need to be performed frequently. Another significant advan-tage of uplink-based characterization means that all the heavy duty channel estimation and signal processing is done at the base station, and not at the user end.

So now that the concept of collecting CSI has been established, how is this information applied to data signals to allow for spatial multiplexing? Filte-ring is designed based on the CSI to precode the data transmitted from the antenna array so that multipath signals will coherently add at the user terminals position. Such filtering can also be used to linearly combine the data received by the antenna array RF paths so that the data streams from different users can be detected. The following section addresses this in more detail.

THE SIGNAL PROCESSING THAT ENABLES MASSIVE MIMOIn the previous section we’ve described how the CSI (denoted by the matrix H) is estimated. Detection and precoding matrices are calculated based on H. There are a number of methods for calculating these matrices. This article focuses on linear schemes. Examples of linear precoding/detection methods are maximum ratio (MR), zero forcing (ZF), and minimum mean-square error (MMSE). Full derivations of the pre-coding/detection filters from the CSI

are not provided in this article, but the criteria they optimize for, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each method are discussed. A more detailed treatment of these topics can be found in the references at the end of this article. [1] [2] [3]

Figure 8 and Figure 9 give a descrip-tion of how the signal processing works in the uplink and downlink respectively for the three linear methods previously mentioned. For precoding there may also be some scaling matrix to norma-lize the power across the array that has been omitted for simplicity.

Maximum ratio filtering, as the name suggests, aims to maximize the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). It is the simplest approach from a signal processing viewpoint, as the detection/precoding matrix is just the conjugate transpose or conjugate of the CSI matrix, H. The big downside of this method is that inter user interference is ignored.

Zero forcing precoding attempts to address the inter user interference problem by designing the optimization criteria to minimize for it. The detection/precoding matrix is the pseudoinverse of the CSI matrix. Calculating the pseudoinverse is more computationally expensive than the complex conju-gate as in the MR case. However, by focusing so intently on minimizing the interference, the received power at the user suffers.

MMSE tries to strike a balance between getting the most signal amplification and reducing the inter-ference. This holistic view comes with signal processing complexity as a price tag. The MMSE approach introduces a regularization term to the optimiza-tion—denoted as β in Figures 8 and 9—that allows for a balance to be found between the noise covariance and the transmit power. It is sometimes also referred to in literature as regularized zero forcing (RZF).

This is not an exhaustive list of precoding/detection techniques, but gives an overview of the main linear approaches. There are also nonlinear signal processing techniques such as dirty paper coding and successive interference cancellation that can be applied to this problem. These offer optimal capacity but are very complex to implement. The linear approaches described above are generally sufficient for massive MIMO, where the number of antennas gets large. The choice of a precoding/detection technique will de-pend on the computational resources,

the number of antennas, the number of users, and the diversity of the particular environment the system is in. For large antenna arrays where the number of antennas is significantly greater than the number of users, the maximum ratio approach may well be sufficient.

Figure 4: Audio analogy to demons-trate spatial characterization of a channel.

Figure 7: Each user terminal transmits orthogonal pilot symbol.

Figure 6: Audio analogy to uplink channel characterization.

Figure 5: Audio analogy to downlink channel characterization.



THE PRACTICAL OBSTACLES REAL-WORLD SYSTEMS PRESENT TO MASSIVE MIMOWhen massive MIMO is implemented in a real-world scenario, there are further practical considerations to be taken into account. Consider an antenna array with 32 transmit (Tx) and 32 receive (Rx) channels operating in the 3.5 GHz band as an example. There are 64 RF signal chains to be put in place and the spa-cing between the antennas is approxi-mately 4.2 cm given the operating fre-quency. That’s a lot of hardware to pack into a small space. It also means there is a lot of power being dissipated, which brings inevitable temperature concerns. Analog Devices’ integrated transceivers offer a highly effective solution to many of these issues. The AD9371 will be dis-cussed in more detail in the next section.

Previously in this article, the appli-cation of reciprocity to the system to drastically cut the channel estimation and signal processing overheads were discussed. Figure 10 shows the downlink channel in a real-world system. It is split into three components; the over-the-air channel (H), the hardware response of the base station transmit RF paths (TBS), and the hardware response of the user receive RF paths (RUE). The uplink is the opposite of this with RBS characterizing the base station receive hardware RF paths and TUE characterizing the users transmit hardware RF paths. While the reciprocity assumption holds for the over the air interface, it does not for the hardware paths. The RF signal chains introduce inaccuracies into the system due to mismatched traces, poor syn-chronization between the RF paths, and temperature-related phase drift.

Using a common synchronized refe-rence clock for all LO (local oscillator) PLLs in the RF paths and synchronized SYSREFs for the baseband digital JES-D204B signals will help address latency concerns between the RF paths. Howe-ver, there will still be some arbitrary phase mismatch between the RF paths at system startup. Temperature-related phase drift contributes further to this issue and it is clear that calibration is required in the field when the system is initialized and periodically thereafter. Calibration allows for the advantages of reciprocity such as maintaining the signal processing complexity at the base station and uplink only channel characterization to be kept. It can gene-rally be simplified so that only the base station RF paths (TBS and RBS) need to be considered.

There are a number of approaches to calibrating these systems. One is to use a reference antenna positioned carefully in front of the antenna array to calibrate both the receive and transmit RF channels. It’s questio-nable whether having an antenna placed in front of the array in this way is suited to practical base station calibration in the field. Another is to use mutual coupling between the existing antennas in the array as the calibra-tion mechanism. This may well be feasible. The most straight forward approach is probably to add passive coupling paths just before the antennas in the base station. This adds more complexity in the hard-ware domain, but should provide a robust calibra-tion mechanism. To fully calibrate the system a signal is sent from one designated calibration transmit channel, which is received by all RF receive paths through the passive coupled connection. Each trans-mit RF path then sends a signal in sequence that is picked up at the passive coupling point before each antenna, relayed back to a combiner, and then to a designated calibration receive path. Temperature related effects are generally slow to change, so this calibration does not have to be performed very frequently, unlike the channel characterization.

ANALOG DEVICES’ TRANSCEIVERS AND MASSIVE MIMOSAnalog Devices’ range of integrated transceiver products are particularly suited to applications where there is a high density of RF signal chains required. AD9371 features 2 transmit paths, 2 receive paths,

and an observation receiver, as well as three fractional-N PLLs for RF LO generation in a 12 mm × 12 mm pac-kage. This unrivaled level of integration

Figure 10: Real-world downlink channel.

Figure 9: Downlink signal processing – T denotes the transpose: * denotes the conjugate.

Figure 8: Uplink signal processin – H denotes the conjugate transpose.


MIMO/Beamforming

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enables manufac-turers to create complex systems in a timely and cost-effective manner.

A possible system implemen-tation featuring multiple AD9371 transceivers is shown in Fi-gure 11. This is a 32 transmit, 32 receive system with 16 AD9371 transceivers. Three AD9528 clock generators provide the PLL reference clocks and JES-D204B SYSREFs to the system. The AD9528 is a 2-stage PLL with 14 LVDS/HSTL

outputs and an integrated JESD204B SYSREF generator for multiple device synchronization. The AD9528s are arranged in a fanout buffer configuration with one acting as a master de-vice with some of its outputs used to drive the clock inputs and the SYSREF inputs of the slave devices. A possible passive ca-libration mechanism is included—shown in green and orange—where a dedicated transmit and receive channel are used to calibrate all the receive and transmit signal paths through a splitter/combiner, as discussed in the previous section.

CONCLUSIONMassive MIMO spatial multiplexing has the potential to beco-me a game changing technology in the cellular communica-tions space, allowing for increased cellular capacity and effi-ciency in high traffic urban areas. The diversity that multipath propagation introduces is exploited to allow for data transfer between a base station and multiple users in the same time and frequency resource. Due to reciprocity of the channel between the base station antennas and the users, all the signal processing complexity can be kept at the base station, and the channel characterization can be done in the uplink. Analog Devices’ RadioVerse™ family of integrated transceiver products allow for a high density of RF paths in a small space, so they are well suited to massive MIMO applications.

REFERENCES[1] Xiang Gao. Massive MIMO in Real Propagation Environ-

ments. Lund University, 2016.[2] Michael Joham, Josef A. Nossek, and Wolfgang Utschick.

“Linear Transmit Processing in MIMO Communications Systems.” IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, Vol. 53, Issue 8, Aug, 2005.

[3] Hien Quoc Ngo. Massive MIMO: Fundamentals and Sys-tem Design. Linköping University, 2015.

The author, Claire Masterson is a systems applications engineer in the Communication Systems Team at Analog Devices Limerick.

Figure 11: Block diagram of 32 Tx, 32 Rx massive MIMO radio head featuring Analog Devices’ AD9371 transceivers.


EMC Design

RFI/EMI screening is a discipline that is of interest to both the electronic engineer and the enclosure design engineer. The electronic engineer must take EMC into account when designing PC boards by careful component and circuit layout, using PCB shielding cans as small Faraday cages over problem components, paying attention to wiring runs, use of filters and ferrites etc. This can eliminate the majority of EMI emissions. However circuit design and layout may not be sufficient to atte-nuate emissions to the required levels and shielding of the enclosure may be necessary.

This is where the enclosure design engineer is required to design the enclo-sure with sufficient thought to using EMI screening gaskets at joint interfaces. Although his brief may be to make the enclosure as small as possible, if this is not taken into consideration early on then this can result in an enclosure with no landed area on which to place a EMI screening gasket. This would require very expensive redesign or the use of more complex and expensive gasket materials and configurations.

Enclosures can be made of any material provided it is electrically conductive and will form a Faraday cage, metallic enclosures have this characteristic, however all plastic en-closures need to be made conductive by applying a conductive coating to the inner surface. This can be done using conductive paints, electroplating or vacuum metallization.

Screened enclosures are rarely a simple case of a closed box design and may have openings for optical displays, ventilation and cable entry. All these areas may have to be screened: Optical displays with the use of a

screened optical window which can be made by using fine wire meshes laminated in glass or clear plastic such as acrylic or polycarbonate or conductive clear coatings on the substrate such as indium tin oxide.

Enclosure ventilation can be screened using simple pierced or expanded me-tal in low performance applications or with the use of honeycomb ventilation panels made of aluminium or steel in higher performance applications.

Cable entry into a screened enclosure needs to have the cable screening bonded to the conductive surface of the enclosure through a scree-ned cable entry gland or screened connector.

FLANGE/GASKET DESIGN AND CONSIDERATIONSThe design requirements for a gas-ket joint in a screened enclosure are primarily that there must be good electrical conductivity between oppo-sing flanges through the gasket. Poor conductivity or high resistance between the flange and the gasket will result in poor shielding and if in areas there is no contact with the gasket this can result in a gap which could possibly act as a slot antenna making things worse, it is therefore important to consider fixing pitch and gasket compression forces to ensure an good continuous seal.

SURFACE MOUNTED GASKETSSurface mounted gaskets such as elec-trically conductive elastomeric gaskets, knitted wire mesh conductive fabric over foam, beryllium copper finger strips etc, aim to compress the gasket between 10% and 50%, 10% being the minimum with a solid conductive elas-tomer style of gasket and up to 50% with a hollow tubular or cellular styles.

Some form of compression stop or limit is essential with surface mounted gaskets to eliminate the possibility of over compression. These compression stops can be built into many styles of gaskets or made as an integral part of the flange and their height should be equal to that of the maximum com-pressed height of the gasket.

Conductive fabric over foam and beryllium copper fingers can be com-pressed further than mesh and elas-tomeric gaskets but lack the benefits of environmental sealing.

Very small land widths can be gas-keted with a “form in place” conductive elastomer bead deposited directly to the gasket surface. This technology is particularly suited to gasketing complex multi compartment labyrinth machined enclosures. Bead sizes can be from 0.5mm wide, electrically conductive and non-conductive beads are available or in tandem to give EMI and environmental sealing.

GASKETS IN GROOVESFor the typical electronic enclosure, groove mounted gaskets such as “O” rings are generally a better option than surface mounted gaskets as when the gasket is compressed in the groove the two mating flanges can come into contact with each other thereby en-

EMC and Electronic Enclosure DesignBy Kemtron


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hancing the screening performance by improving low contact resistance, “O” rings in grooves are also a much more cost effective solution and the groove also acts as a compression stop, thus protecting the gasket.

Most types of gaskets can be fitted into grooves, however a solid conduc-tive elastomer gasket when compres-sion forces are applied cannot change volume and has to deflect, and therefore the groove needs to be the same volume or more as the gasket to let the gasket material fill the space provided for it. If the gasket overfills the groove, damage

and gasket failure can occur when the mating flanges are closed together.

CORROSIONAn EMC gasket that is placed between two conductive surfaces is generally of a different material to the mating surfaces. In certain conditions this can lead to severe problems of bimetallic galvanic corrosion and degradation in shielding effectiveness. There are two ways of re-ducing the corrosion risk. One is to use a separate non-conductive environmental seal outboard of the EMC seal therefore isolating the joint from the environment.

This would allow the use of materials that would otherwise be unsuitably matched. However limitations on flange widths and the increased cost of using two gaskets can make this impractical.

A far better method is to try and match as near as possible the mate-rial of the gasket and the flanges thus reducing the electro potential difference between them. Kemtron offer a com-plete service offering a complete range of EMC gaskets and components for enclosures and PCB’s

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Future Millimeter-Wave Networks to Combine Best of High and Low FrequenciesA ground-breaking research project has determined that next-generation high-speed networks based on milli-meter-wave (30-300GHz) technology will be more robust and efficient in delivering extremely high speed, high quality video, and multimedia content and services.

The recently-concluded study on millimeter-wave communications was a collaboration between Huawei Technol-ogies and IMDEA Networks Institute, the Madrid-based research body pioneering many technologies that are being de-ployed in the new 5G landscape.

Dr. Joerg Widmer, the Principal In-vestigator on the project and Research Director at IMDEA Networks explains:

"A signal's path loss increases significantly with its frequency. So, high frequency (HF) communications, like millimeter-wave systems which offer the speed and capacity that 5G and 802.11ad-standard Wi-Fi networks require, demand directional antennas in order to overcome the resulting atten-uation. This results in high signaling overheads, since both ends of the com-munication have to continuously update their antenna steering as nodes move and blockages interrupt the line-of-sight path. These problems are avoided in low frequency (LF) networks, with their rich multi-path environment and much lower attenuation rates."

"We've explored how to use low frequency bands to infer the chan-nel characteristics of high frequency millimeter-wave bands and to support the network in terms of beam tracking, angle of arrival estimation, and location

information. By studying this ap-proach and other LF-HF channel correlations that may enable LF to assist HF, we've been able to develop techniques that improve performance in the millime-ter-wave band and reduce the control overhead required to op-erate the network. We demon-strated that the mechanisms and algorithms we developed work not only in theory but also in real-world wireless network-ing environments during the experimental evaluation phase of the project."

"To my knowledge, this was the first time that these two systems have been studied together, in depth. Our team of experts achieved some really interesting results, develop-ing techniques that will enable operators to improve their performance in the mil-limeter-wave band and thereby reduce the control overhead they require to op-erate their present and future networks. Our work has already resulted in two patent applications, with a third current-ly being evaluated for viability."

"One of the most important challeng-es was to study the channel correla-tion that may enable LF to assist HF", continues Widmer. "We had to consider a lot of variables in this study, such as the scenarios, power, and delay of the signal, number of paths, and the num-ber of antennas of each system. The IMDEA Networks team was comprised of researchers with backgrounds in math, programming languages, material physics, radiofrequency propagation

and communication standards. The application of this diversity of expert knowledge, with the wealth of technical resources at our disposal, all helped to ensure our success in achieving our goals for this project."

www.networks.imdea.org

REFERENCE Pablo Jimenez Mateo, Alejandro Blan-co, Norbert Ludant, Matteo Marugan Borelli, Amanda García-García, Adrian Loch, Zhenyu Shi, Yi Wang, Joerg Widmer (February 2019) A Comprehen-sive Study of Low Frequency and High Frequency Channel Correlation [PDF] In: International Conference on Computing, Networking and Communications (ICNC 2019), 18-21 February 2019 , Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.

Angle of arrival (AoA) estimation at low frequency (2.45 GHz). The set-up includes an antenna array of 4 elements. We use the algorithm MUSIC in order to estimate the AoA of the signal received. Image: © IMDEA Networks Institute.


LoRaWAN

The Internet of Things (IoT) places a number of demands on any network technology. It calls for an architecture that is designed to handle thousands of nodes that can be far from populated areas and in locations that are difficult to access, from sensors monitoring the flow of water and pollution in rivers and canals through to utility meters in the basements of houses.

The architecture also needs to support battery-powered sensor nodes in a secure fashion while maximising installation and maintenance conve-nience, which points clearly to wireless communications as a way of avoiding cabling costs. The network technology must take into account the strict energy envelope of end-node devices, many of which must run for a decade on a single battery charge. And it must provide good security to prevent eavesdropping and help fend off hacking attempts.

The design of such a network tech-nology begins at the physical layer. Similar to a number of other wireless protocols that have been employed for IoT applications, LoRaWAN uses spread-spectrum modulation. A key difference between LoRaWAN and other protocols lies in its use of an adaptive technology based on chirp signals rather than conventional direct-se-quence spread-spectrum signaling (DSSS). This approach offers a tradeoff between reception sensitivity and maximum datarate, which thanks to the modulation’s design, supports this adaptation on a node-by-node basis.

Under DSSS, the phase of the carrier is shifted dynamically according to a pre-computed code sequence. A nu-mber of successive codes are applied to each bit that is to be transmitted. This sequence of phase shifts for each bit creates a signal that changes much more quickly than the carrier and so spreads the data across a wide fre-quency band. The higher the number of code ‘chips’ per bit, the higher the spreading factor. This spreading makes the signal less susceptible to interfe-rence but reduces the effective datarate and increases the energy per bit trans-mitted. However, because it is more resistant to interference, the transmitter can reduce overall power levels. In ge-

neral, for the same bit-error rate, DSSS offers lower energy usage.

There are energy and financial costs to using DSSS, which reduce its appli-cability to use in IoT nodes. To ensure that the receiver is able to process the incoming chips and convert the stream back to data, DSSS relies on an accurate reference clock being present on the PCB. Such clocks tend to be expensive and increasing accuracy in clocking also causes power consump-tion to rise. The chirp spread spectrum (CSS) technique used by LoRaWAN can be implemented at lower cost because it does not rely on an accurate clock.

A chirp signal is one that varies in frequency over time. In LoRaWAN’s case the signal increases in frequency over the length of each data bit’s group of chips. To improve resilience, Lo-RaWAN adds error correction informa-tion to the data stream.

In addition to the interference re-sistance inherent to spread-spectrum systems, CSS offers high immunity to multipath distortion and fading, which are often problematic in urban environ-ments as well as Doppler shifts. Such shifts cause the apparent frequency to change, which leads to the need for high-accuracy clocks. However, the CSS technique is more resilient because Dop-pler shifts only cause a small change in the time axis of the baseband signal.

Like DSSS, LoRa can vary the num-ber of code chips per bit. The standard defines six different spreading factors

(SFs). A higher spreading factors makes it possible to extend the range of a network, trading that off against more power per bit and a lower overall data-rate. At SF7, the maximum datarate is approximately 5.4kbit/s and the signal can be expected to be strong enough to travel 2km, though this distance will be terrain dependent. At SF10, the estimated range increases to 8km, with a datarate of a little less than 1kbit/s. This is the highest SF on an uplink: a transmission from node to basestation. A downlink can use two even larger SFs.

The SFs are orthogonal. This allows different nodes to use different channel configurations without affecting each other.

On top of the physical layer that prepares data for CSS modulation and transmission, LoRaWAN defines two logical layers that conform to layers two and three of the Open Systems Inter-connection OSI layered network model.

Layer two is the LoRa datalink layer, which includes basic message-integrity protection based on cyclic redundancy checks. As with any other layer-two protocol in the OSI model, LoRaWAN’s implementation provides for basic point-to-point communication.

Layer three adds the network-proto-col functionality that makes LoRaWAN highly suited to IoT applications. The network protocol provides the ability for nodes to signal to each other or to send data to the cloud via the internet through a concentrator or gateway unit.

Inside the LoRaWANTM network technologyBy Patrick van Eijk, IoT Solutions Director, Semtech Corporation

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LoRaWAN uses a star topology: all leaf nodes communicate through the most appropriate gateway. The gateways take care of all routing and can, if more than one gateway is in range of a leaf node and the local network is experiencing congestion, switch communication to an alternative.

Some IoT protocols use mesh networking to increase the maximum distance of a leaf node from a gateway. However, this comes at an increased energy burden on the nodes that are used to pass messages to and from the gateways and an inevitable and unpredictable adverse effect on battery life. Lo-RaWAN’s architecture ensures that each IoT node can have its battery appropriately and predictably sized for the application.

The gateway acts as a bridge between simpler protocols that are more suitable for resource-constrained leaf nodes and the Internet Protocol (IP) used to provide IoT-level ser-vices. LoRaWAN also takes account of the differing capabili-ties and energy profiles of end devices through its support for three different access classes.

All devices need to be able to support Class A. This the simplest mode and is used to help maximise battery life. This class employs the widely used Aloha Protocol. A device can transmit an uplink message to the gateway at any time: the protocol has built-in collision avoidance mechanisms if two or more devices attempt to transmit at the same time.

Once it has completed a transmission, the end-node waits for a downlink message in response, which needs to arrive

Example of LoRa chirp signal.

OSI 7-layer network model.

LoRaWAN


LoRaWAN

within one of two available time slots. As soon as the reply has arrived, the end-node can go to sleep, which helps to maximise battery life.

A LoRaWAN gateway cannot wake up a Class A end-node if it is sleeping: the device has to wake up on its own. This is normally achieved through local timers or through event-driven activation, which is generally caused by a change in a local sensor input.

Actuators such as valves in a fluid-control system need to be able to receive commands sent by a network application even if they have no local data to process and communicate. These devices use Class B or C modes. With Class B, each device is assigned a time slot during which it needs to activate its receiver to check for any downlink messages. The node can sleep in between those time slots. Uplink messages can be sent whe-never the device is not scheduled to be listening for a downlink message. Class B tends to be used where a latency of up to several minutes is tolerable.

Class C provides support for much lower latency responses to downlink messages as the receiver front-end re-mains active almost constantly. The only time when a Class C device is not liste-ning is when it is sending its own uplink messages. This class is usually employed by mains-powered end-nodes.

Unlike a number of protocols pro-posed for IoT use, LoRaWAN im-plements end-to-end encryption for application data all the way through to the cloud servers used for management and service delivery.

As well as end-to-end encryption, LoRaWAN ensures that any device joining the network has the appropriate creden-tials and lets IoT nodes check they are not connecting to a gateway with a fake

identity. To provide the required level of authentication, each LoRaWAN device is programmed during manufacture with a unique key, known in the protocol as the AppKey. The device is also provided with a globally unique identifier. To help de-vices identify their gateway connections, each network has its own identifier in a list managed by the LoRa Alliance.

Computers designated as Join Servers are used to authenticate the AppKey of each device that wants to join the network. Once the Join Server has authenticated the AppKey, it creates a pair of session keys that are used for subsequent transactions. The NwkSKey is used to encrypt messages used for controlling network-level changes, such as those used to set up a device on a specific gateway. The second key, the AppSKey, encrypts all application-level data. This separation makes sure the

user’s messages cannot be intercepted and decrypted by a third-party network operator.

A further level of security is provided by the use of secure counters embedded in the message protocol. This facility prevents packet-replay attacks, in which a hacker intercepts packets and mani-pulates them before reintroducing them into the data stream. All the security mechanisms are implemented using the AES encryption mechanisms, which have been proven to enable a high level of security assurance.

In summary, by taking in conside-rations such as the need for wide-area coverage, energy awareness and security, LoRaWAN’s developers have ensured the protocol is the smartest choice for building IoT networks.

www.semtech.com

Blu Wireless funds 5G chip design roll outIP designer Blu Wireless has raised £12.7m ($16.6m) to boost the deploy-ment of its millimetre wave processor for 5G chips. The mmWave system IP specialist, based in Bristol, UK, is work-ing with leading telecoms infrastructure providers and 5G chip makers in the US, Japan, the UK and mainland Europe. They are using Blu Wireless' HYDRA high speed modem chip design in 5G software defined ‘network of networks’ as well Industry 4.0 and high-speed transportation. The funding round was led by existing investors Arm, Calculus

Capital, Kendall and MGL, with new investor Guinness Asset Management, to scale the deployment of devices us-ing HYDRA across a range of 5G chip designs in a range of applications. The deal brings the total investment to over £24m ($30m).

The company recently announced a supplier partnership with leading in-ternational railway operator FirstGroup to deliver 5G track-to-train infrastruc-ture in the UK. The partnership deal will enable rail operators to provide super-fast and reliable onboard Wi-Fi

connections. It is also part of the Air-span project in the UK that is providing gigabit data to cars at high speed, using vehicles from Mclaren.

THe HYDRA modem and system IP enables carrier grade connectivity using unlicensed spectrum to deliver multi-gigabit, fibre-level connections. It allows system makers to access the full 14 GHz of spectrum available in the 57-71 GHz band, reducing the cost of 5G equipment in different applications.

www.bluwireless.co.uk

LoRaWAN star network topology.


Stealth 5G

In this Q&A, Peter Raabe, Strategic Director at RFS discusses the issues facing 5G today – making the case for end-to-end solutions that can be easily deployed and overcome the challenges operators face around space, visual im-pact and network complexity – in other words stealth 5G.

1) WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST HURDLES OPERATORS MUST OVERCOME WHEN LOOKING TO DEPLOY 5G IN 2019?5G is coming and operators have made big promises for a 2019 roll out. The reality is there are a number of signi-ficant stumbling blocks on the road ahead, and they need to be anticipated and dealt with ahead of time to ensure 5G delivers ROI rather than becoming an investment blackhole.

When we look specifically at the infrastructure necessary to support 5G, the challenges are three-fold. Firstly, site constraints. Cell sites offer a finite amount of space and 4G systems are going nowhere. 5G needs to deliver on its high capacity promises and there simply isn’t enough space to build a forest of antennas, not to mention the restrictions on weight load and visual impact.

Secondly, beyond the base station, operators face the challenge of ensuring 5G coverage and capacity in dense ur-ban areas. Although customers want the benefits of 5G, they do not want to be able to see the infrastructure that is es-sential to powering it. This leaves opera-tors with a real challenge when it comes to delivering 5G in the cities where use cases show the most promise.

Finally, there is the bottom line. Ope-rators have to be able to justify the ca-pital expenditure and with the lessons from 4G deployments still ringing loudly, it is vital that they get the approach to 5G investment right.

2) HOW CAN OPERATORS ADDRESS THE BASE STATION SITE CHALLENGES OF 5G ROLL-OUT?The biggest base station challenge is site constraints, which means operators need to be smart when it comes to 5G. Site constraints are nothing new. This is a particular problem in cities where

they’re already overcrowded, and it’s become almost impossible for opera-tors to acquire new sites as a result. Also, as a typical site already supports many different antennas and bands for a variety of purposes and operators, trying to add new ones creates a long, expensive, and complicated negotiation process with site owners.

The answer, then, is to find new ways of deploying 5G (or LTE-A and 5G-ready) active antennas, with anten-na arrays supporting mMIMO techno-logies including beamforming, onto existing sites as efficiently as possible.

This is where 5G by stealth comes into play. This means the antenna infrastructure itself looks exactly the same, however the functionality is significantly increased. For example, an Active Passive Antenna will maintain the form factor of typical passive base station antennas, yet by integrating active components it is able to support 4G and 5G networks. This approach consolidates the equipment into a single antenna shared by 4G and 5G services and therefore minimises the problems caused by site constraints.

Moreover, a ‘fusion’ of 4G and 5G into the same physical air interface, based on a modular antenna design and building block concept, will allow for plug-in of 5G active components

after the antenna installation itself. This opens the path for a cost effective, smooth transition and network in-frastructure evolution from 4G to 5G.

3) HOW DOES THIS CHANGE WHEN DELIVERING 5G IN DENSE URBAN AREAS, AND WHAT ROLE WILL EMOTIONAL TRANSPARENCY PLAY?The challenges remain the same – deli-ver new 5G technology without signi-ficantly increasing the infrastructure needed to power it. It doesn’t make it any easier to deliver. Consumers and subscribers want it all – 5G but with a ‘not in my backyard’ mentality. Cities will offer some of the best use cases that will help to drive ROI on operator investment, however, delivering the coverage and capacity needed is a challenge. Operators therefore need to focus on equipment that has emotional transparency for consumers. That’s equipment that can be concealed or blend into the background.

The design of equipment is more important than ever before, and ope-rators need to work with OEMs and RF specialists that are capable of desi-gning this ‘transparent’ equipment. This means small cells that are truly capable of blending into the background, the introduction of wireless backhaul or integrating with existing structures

Q&A – Stealth 5GBy Peter Raabe, Strategic Director at RFS


Stealth 5G

(street furniture, indoor furniture) such as street lamps, distributed antenna systems and RF wideband, MIMO ready radiating cable systems that can sup-port in-building and in-tunnel connecti-vity without creating an eyesore.

Ultimately, overcoming the design challenges is one of the most essential tasks for operators ahead of deploying 5G networks that are capable of delive-ring all that has been promised.

4) WHAT IS 'STEALTH 5G' AND HOW WILL IT IMPACT THE DEPLOYMENT OF 5G HARDWARE?Stealth 5G as a concept is simple – end-to-end solutions that can be easily deployed and overcome the challenges operators face around space, visual impact and network complexity. For operators it means working with OEMs that are capable of packing signifi-cantly more functionality into the same form factor of existing equipment. Not only this, but it avoids one big rip and replace roll out and allows it to be deployed in a way that allows a balance between CAPEX and ROI.

Active Passive Antennas are a per-fect example. It combines the passive components needed for legacy fre-quency transmissions with the active components needed for 3.5 GHz mMI-

MO transmissions in 5G networks in a single antenna. It minimises the space and visual impact and allows operators to achieve more, with less equipment.

Not only this, but they allow opera-tors to take a staggered approach to roll out. They are planned with modular architecture that allows mobile opera-tors to deploy a passive antenna today then seamlessly upgrade the antenna with active components when the time is right, with no impact on either the passive or active aspects of antenna performance. This means operators benefit from continues support for 4G networks as significant revenue ge-nerators, and allows the CAPEX to be spread as the active modules can be introduced on a rolling basis with the benefits of a futureproof model.

Today, interest has centred around a rollout of passive “4G and lower” FDD antennas that can be adapted to include TDD 3.5GHz 8T8R access and then later to full TDD mMIMO 3.5GHz 64T64R access. The same can be said for 2.3GHz in North America. For both 3.5 and 2.3GHz cases, complex multiband passive antennas based on 2 low band and 3 or 4 high band arrays are integrated (or interleaved) with the TDD antennas making for a compel-ling stealth 5G line up. The complex

FDD passive antennas look the same whether they have TDD or not.

5) WHAT WILL DIFFERENTIATE OPERATORS AS THEY COMPETE TO DELIVER 5G OVER THE NEXT 12 MONTHS?5G investment is essential, but it also has to be smart. Those operators that are able to define a strategy that allows them to see ROI when it comes to 5G is critical and a staggered and modular approach may hold the answer.

Additionally, consolidation will be one of the biggest trends in network equipment over the next 12 months and those operators that succeed, will see the biggest rewards. More needs to be done with less; more capacity, higher throughput, but in less space with lower visual impact.

The combination of these needs is where Stealth 5G comes to the fore. Operators that can embrace the concept and source equipment that tackles the challenges of easy deploy-ment, space, visual impact and network complexity and deploy it in a way that will have a favourable impact on the bottom line will be the ones to come out on top.

www.rfsworld.com

Vodafone Idea and IBM in Agreement to Advance Hybrid Cloud and AILeveraging its hybrid cloud and AI exper-tise, IBM has signed a multi-million-dollar five-year agreement with Vodafone Idea Limited to deliver an enhanced customer experience to millions of connected con-sumers and businesses in India.

The agreement will provide Voda-fone Idea with a hybrid cloud based digital platform to enable more intimate engagement with its over 387 million subscribers (as of December 31, 2018), enhancing business efficiency, agility and scale plus simplification of its busi-ness processes. This new infrastructure platform will help remove constraints to the exponential growth of data usage driven by increasing consumption of video, streaming and digital commerce.

Vodafone Idea is collaborating with leading global technology partners in-cluding IBM to deploy new age technol-ogies with built-in customizations and novel innovations. Hybrid and Multi-

cloud, analytics and AI security capabil-ities from IBM will assist in accelerating Vodafone Idea's progression to an open, agile and secure IT environment. It will also provide a platform for fast-track joint initiatives in AI and IOT.

Vodafone Idea will also leverage dynamic automation and robotic pro-cess automation to drive efficiency and standardization across IT operations. AI and machine learning based cognitive systems aim to provide Vodafone Idea with a secure environment ensuring regulatory compliance, intelligent threat detection, and data protection.

"Consumers have come to expect mobile networks that effortlessly meet their data demands providing the consistency and flexibility required in today's era of interconnectedness," said Juan Zufiria, IBM Senior Vice President of Global Technology Services. "Collab-oration with Vodafone Idea will take ad-

vantage of Hybrid and Multicloud, Ana-lytics and AI, to enable Vodafone Idea to further differentiate itself in the market, including by leveraging the convergence of Network and IT in the Cloud."

IBM will continue to seamlessly deliver enhanced services for Vodafone Idea leveraging its prior capabilities with Vodafone India and Idea Cellular. It will consolidate applications, and infrastruc-ture including data centers, disaster recovery centers, and further accelerate existing cloud usage. Solutions deployed by Vodafone India Limited and Idea Cel-lular Limited earlier will be merged and big data capabilities be enhanced.

With more than 70 percent of or-ganisations today using up to 15 cloud environments, the interconnectivity of clouds and the vulnerability of data have become global issues.

www.ibm.com


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Until now, scientists have believed that radar accuracy and resolution are related to the range of frequencies or radio bandwidth used by the devices. But a new Tel Aviv University study finds that an approach inspired by optical coherence tomography (OCT) requires little to no bandwidth to accurately create a high-resolution map of a radar's surroun-ding environment.

"We've demonstrated a different type of ranging system that possesses superior range resolution and is almost completely free of bandwidth limitations," says Prof. Pavel Ginzburg of TAU's School of Electrical Engineering, one of the principal authors of the study. "The new technology has numerous appli-cations, especially with respect to the automotive industry. It's worth noting that existing facilities support our new approach, which means that it can be launched almost immediately."

The new research was led and conducted jointly by Prof. Ginzburg, Vitali Kozlov, Rony Komissarov and Dmitry Filonov, all of TAU's School of Electrical Engineering and published in Nature Communications.

It is a generally held view that radar resolution is proportional to the band-width used – the broader the range of frequencies, the more accurate the detection of objects. However, the TAU researchers have now demonstrated that low-bandwidth radars can achieve similar performance at a lower cost and without broadband signals by exploi-ting the coherence property of electro-magnetic waves.

Two wave sources are perfectly cohe-rent if they have a constant phase diffe-rence, the same frequency and the same waveform. The new "partially coherent" radar is as effective at resolving targets when compared with standard "cohe-rent" radars in experimental situations.

"Our concept offers solutions in situations that require high-range

resolution and accuracy but in which the available bandwidth is limited, such as the self-driving car industry, opti-cal imaging and astronomy," Kozlov explains. "Not many cars on the road today use radars, so there's almost no competition for allocated frequencies. But what will happen in the future, when every car will be equipped with a radar and every radar will demand the entire bandwidth?

"We'll find ourselves in a sort of radio traffic jam. Our solutions permit drivers to share the available bandwidth wit-hout any conflict," Kozlov says.

"Our demonstration is just the first step in a series of new approaches to radiofrequency detectors that explore the impact of low-bandwidth radars on traditional fields," Prof. Ginzburg concludes. "We intend to apply this technology to previously unexplored areas, like rescue operations – sensing if an individual is buried in a collapsed building – or street mapping – sensing if a child is about to cross the street behind a bus that conceals him.”

Research for the study was sup-ported by an ERC grant and Kamin, and it was conducted at TAU's Radio Phy-sics Laboratory's anechoic chamber.

Related article: https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-09380-x

www.aftau.org

Low-Bandwidth Radar Improves Detection of Objects

Partially coherent radar operation schematics. Image courtesy of Nature Communications.


Antennas

The cost of IoT sensors continues to fall annually allowing more and more organisations in industries that operate across large areas, such as agriculture and utilities, to roll out remote IoT and M2M deployments. To ensure these projects achieve strong ROI, hardware has to tough it out in harsh conditions with minimal maintenance. Andy Bird, Managing Director of GTT Wireless, discusses the requirements for antennas selected for rugged wireless deploy-ments, and how careful consideration of design type, connectors and interopera-bility will help avoid antennas becoming the weakest link.

Today, we are seeing the boundaries of IoT applications expanding and a rich variety of industrial deployments driving major ROI for organisations. Shell is a prime example. The global oil & gas com-pany has used IoT technology to monitor the condition of remote oilfields across Nigeria, and achieved one million dollars in savings through a reduced requirement for regular physical site inspections.

Now we are looking beyond the Shells of this world and seeing IoT projects that are no longer limited to the largest of bu-sinesses. Think of an agricultural firm that has deployed GPS trackers to monitor the location of vehicles and machinery spread across an extensive region. By tapping into real-time positioning data, agricultural managers can monitor driver technique, identify areas for optimising tractor coverage, and ensure vehicles are nearby for scheduled maintenance.

VULNERABLE ANTENNAS – BEWARE THE RISING DAMP!But with these deployments come regular hardware and geographical challenges, which are often fed back to the GTT Wi-reless team. For organisations with assets operating across a vast area, constant connectivity and high levels of reliability are vital. Hardware that is proven to resist challenging conditions such as heat, dust and repeated vibration – without sacrifi-cing on performance or functionality – is essential to cut the need for continuous maintenance or replacement.

It is important for organisations to prioritise hardware components and M2M applications that are proven to endure challenging conditions in outdoor envi-ronments. Antennas are no exception.

We see a lot of antennas sporting an SMA connector. These may be cheap and readily available, but they are by no means suitable for mission-critical ope-rations – with water representing a major threat. These antennas might deliver suitable connectivity once installed, but incremental stresses such as the slow accumulation of moisture can have a catastrophic effect on housed PCBs.

PREVENT THREATS FROM ALL ANGLESTo meet the industry need for rugged IoT-capable antennas, antenna manufac-turers have begun to develop extensive, enterprise-grade antenna ranges speci-fically tailored to resist challenging and remote conditions. Antennas that incorpo-rate an N-type connector are ideal in that they are highly resilient to shock, vibration and other physical disturbances, as well as IK09 rated against external impact.

Mushroom-style antennas in particu-lar are designed to enable IoT applica-tions, and support key communications standards such as WiFi, LoRa and LTE for greater data speeds, low power consumption and long-range transmis-sion. These low-profile designs reduce the threat of vandalism or strike damage and are typically IP67 rated for protection against dust and moisture.

NO ‘ONE SIZE FITS ALL’ APPROACHFlexibility is a key consideration when implementing IoT projects. Each deploy-ment is unique in its hardware requi-rements, and indoor or sheltered IoT deployments may not require rugged hardware. For this reason, it is important for designers to identify an antenna range that offers multiple connectivity options for greater customisation, whether this is N-type plugs, jacks, or SMA pigtail cables. If the scope of a wireless project changes for example, from 3G connec-tivity to GPS, designers must take care

to ensure suitable antennas are available from the same range to ensure project continuity, interoperability and compa-rable protection levels.

MAKE SURE YOU DON’T DEPLOY A WEAK LINK – TEST FIRSTAt GTT Wireless we operate a dedicated component IP67 testing facility to verify the durability of our N-type antennas and provide end-users with peace of mind that antennas will not be the weak link of an ambitious wireless project.

Beyond this, we strongly encourage designers to test interoperability by using a visual design tool to demonstrate how compatible antennas can be integrated into a full enclosure solution. This is particularly important when selecting the accompanying variable-sized rugged enclosures to ensure seamless integra-tion of all components. Each compo-nent should be colour-coded for instant identification to support easy installation – ideal for large-scale deployments with hundreds of units.

TIME TO CONNECT THE DOTSDeploying IoT for real-time, remote appli-cations – such as co-ordinating precise vehicle movements and operations across a large area – represents a major competitive differentiator, which should not hinge on the reliability of poorly pro-tected, off-the-shelf components.

Although SMA connectors certain-ly have a role to play in many wireless projects, there is little doubt that N-type connectors are now a necessity for en-suring the success of outdoor or remote wireless deployments. And as IoT tech-nology continues to mature and the use-cases expand, we strongly recommend businesses start to plan out their journey to resilient outdoor connectivity today.

THE AUTHORAndy Bird is Managing Director of GTT Wireless, a leading global provider of an-tennas and rugged enclosures to support mission-critical wireless projects.

https://gttwireless.com

The Weakest Link? How to Ensure Antennas Are Not the Single Point of Failure in Challenging DeploymentsBy GTT Wireless


Products

Transceiversecures voice and data channels over 12km

The SCT2400 transceiver from CML Microcircuits has been designed to sus-tain secure digital voice and data commu-nication channels over ranges in excess of 12 km (line of sight). The transceiver can be used in systems operating in licensed and unlicensed bands.

The SCT2400 uses spread spectrum modulation in the 2.4 GHz frequency range. It gives a range of over 12 km with up to 100 mW of output power is achie-ved and consumes just 10mA in scan mode, around 52 mA when receiving voice and 64 mA when transmitting voice.

CML’s voice coding expertise and advanced forward error correction allow the SCT2400 to provide clear, secure communications over long ranges in low power radio systems. The SCT2400 will allow manufacturers use a single platform for multiple regions, and the support for short data messages will let it address new markets and emerging applications.

The SCT2400’s low power dissipation and small size (10-mm by 10-mm, 144-BGA package) means it can be used in portable, mobile and wearable products. It operates from a single 3V supply and supports digital voice modes that include peer to peer, group call and broadcast, along with an SMS data mode.

www.cmlmicro.com

IDT expands RF beamforming portfolio

Integrated Device Technology is broadly sampling a portfolio of microwave and millimeter-wave (mmWave) beamforming products for satellite communications, radar, test and measurement and other applications that utilize phased array antennas.

The RF beamforming portfolio consists of three families of transmit and receive silicon ICs that support Ku, Ka and CDL frequency bands. These satellite com-munications ICs are designed for use in next-generation airborne, maritime and ground-based systems supporting existing GEO and/or emerging LEO/MEO satellite constellations. The portfolio is designed to support all of the popular bands and architectures associated with the rapidly evolving satellite communications market.

Expanding the current 5G beamforming IC family, this latest satellite communica-tions portfolio continues IDT's investment and growth in the RF market and conso-lidates its position as a leading supplier of RF products in both the wireless infrastructure and growing data-on-the-move markets.

The 8-channel F6101, F6102 and F6103 receivers and F6501, F6502 and F6503 transmitters have 6-bit phase resolution and more than 30 dB gain

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adjustment control with 0.25 dB resolution on each channel enabling, precise beam pointing and side-lobe level control, as well as arbitrary pattern shaping including deep nulling for interferer mitigation.

As with all of IDT's RF devices, the monolithic silicon-based beamformer ICs enable higher levels of integration to achieve lower system costs without sacri-ficing RF performance, as well as impro-ving manufacturing robustness. Sample parts and evaluation kits are available now to customers upon request.

www.idt.com

Wi-Fi and Bluetooth combo moduleboasts low power

Murata is collaborating with Cypress Semiconductor to develop a low-power, small form-factor Wi-Fi and Blue-tooth module, designated Type 1LV (CYW43012). This Wi-Fi and Bluetooth combo module improves battery life in wearables, smart home products, and por-table audio applications. When comparing power usage of the Type 1LV (CYW43012) to the Type 1DX (CYW4343W), the 1LV comes in approximately 54 percent lower in DTIM 1, 60 percent in DTIM 3, up to 50 percent for 2.4 GHz RX, and 28 percent for 2.4 GHz TX.

Based on the Cypress CYW43012 combo chipset, the ultra-small dual-band Wi-Fi 11a/b/g/n/ (11ac Friendly™) +Blue-tooth 5.0 module provides data transfe-rence rates up to 78 Mbps on Wi-Fi and 3 Mbps on Bluetooth. The Type 1LV sup-ports a broad range of popular processors including PSoC6, i.MX RT, STM32, i.MX, and IP Camera platforms, as well as Linux and RTOS based applications.

The Type 1LV uses highly sophisticated and enhanced hardware mechanisms and algorithms to ensure that Wi-Fi and Bluetooth coexistence is optimised for maximum performance. An embedded Ipv6 network stack can be used to keep the host processor in sleep mode while maintaining network connections. The module also supports BLE 2-Mbps, LE

Secure Connections, LE Privacy 1.2, and LE Data Packet Length Extension. The device operates seamlessly in dual-band networks with increased energy efficiency and enhanced security providing optimal performance in Wi-Fi 5 networks. The module size is 10.0- x 7.2- x 1.4-mm (L x W x H). It will have a reference antennae design for FCC/IC certifications and CE conducted test to provide a lower deve-lopment cost and faster time to market.

www.murata.com

Spectrum analyzersdeliver high-speed analysis, ideal for 5G NREnabling manufacturers of RF compo-nents, transmitters and modules to carry out complex measurement tasks on wide-band RF signals with tight time-to-market requirements, the FSV3000 and FSVA3000 midrange signal and spectrum analyzers from Rohde & Schwarz offer different fre-quency models covering up to 44 GHz.

The new analysers are especially ideal for dealing with the advances of 5G NR technology – engineers need to analyze wireless communications signals in R&D and production with test solutions suppor-ting 5G bandwidth and RF requirements.

The FSV3000 is designed to help users set up complex measurements in the simplest and fastest way possible. With its easy usability and high measurement speed, it is the right instrument for labs and production lines. It provides up to 200 MHz analysis bandwidth – enough to capture and analyze, for example, two 5G NR carriers at once.

The FSVA3000, with up to 400 MHz analysis bandwidth, a high dynamic range and an outstanding phase noise of –120 dBc/Hz, delivers performance that was, until recently, reserved for high-end instruments. It enables users to perform highly demanding measurement applica-tions such as linearizing power amplifiers, capturing short events and characterizing frequency agile signals.

Both spectrum analysers can measure EVM values better than 1 % for a 100 MHz

signal at 28 GHz. Together with the cove-rage of the 5G NR frequency bands up to 44 GHz, this makes the analyzers ideal for analyzing 5G NR signals.

The spectrum analyzers simplify troubleshooting rare events and setting up complex measurements. With the event based action GUI, whenever a predeter-mined event occurs the corresponding action, such as saving a screenshot or I/Q data, is performed.

Auto measurements shorten the setup time of the instrument itself. At the press of a button, parameters such as center frequency, span and amplitude reference are automatically set based on the applied signal, and in the case of a pulse signal, the gate sweep parameters are set. For standard-compliant measurements such as ACLR or SEM, the auto measurement feature selects the corresponding stan-dard parameter table.

In scenarios with automated production lines with complex measurements, exter-nal computers can take over the control of the instruments via SCPI commands. Fur-thermore, the embedded SCPI recorder makes it much easier to create executable scripts, since all manual input is trans-lated into plain SCPI or into the syntax of common programming languages or tools such as C++, Python or MATLAB©.

The spectrum analyzers are designed for high-speed performance in automated test systems. Both perfectly interact with cloud based processing.

www.rohde-schwarz.com

SMT automotive antennasaddress global frequenciesLow profile SMT automotive antennas from AVX/Ethertronics that provide best-in-class RF performance and give global coverage are now available from TTI, Inc.The antennas support different worldwide frequency bands and ensure superior performance, yet occupy minimal PCB real estate. These automotive antennas provide broadband coverage across 4G/LTE, 3G, GPS, WiFi, V2X or BT networks, with turning capabilities to deliver opti-mized performance.

The Universal Broadband Embedded LTE/LPWA antenna (Part Number P822601) from AVX/Ethertronics utilises Isolated Magnetic Dipole™ (IMD) tech-nology, which provides superior RF field containment and less interference or reaction with surrounding components, important in the electronically-busy


Products

automotive environment. The devices resist detuning and maintain a reliable radio link regardless of usage position. Peak gain over different frequencies are 2.6 dBi over 689 to 960 MHz; 4.4 dBi from 1710 to 2200 MHz; and 3.4 dBi over 2500 to 2700 MHz. The devices have a very small PCB footprint of only 49.6- x 8.0- x 3.2 mm.

The AVX/Ethertronics Wi-Fi/BT/Zigbee ceramic chip antenna (Part Number 1001312) also offers the advantages of IMD technology, enabling design

engineers to provide the key require-ments of high functionality and superior performance in smaller, thinner designs. Measuring only 2.00- x 1.20- x 0.5-mm it operates over the 2400 to 2485 MHz frequency with peak gain of 1.88 dBi.

AVX/Ethertronics provides a wide range of SMT stamped metal anten-nas for V2X applications. Antenna PN 1002289 provides exceptional characte-ristics, such as vertical polarization, ideal to improve performance in Vehicle-to-In-frastructure communications.

In addition, Ethertronics offers a custom design and testing services using its in-house automotive anechoic cham-ber, located in Antibes (France).

www.ttieurope.com

5G NR network measurement systemRohde & Schwarz has announced the TSME30DC downconverter, and com-bined it with the TSMx6 network scanner

to measure and analyse 5G NR signals up to 30 GHz, covering the majority of high frequency 5G NR use cases.

Rounding out the system are an updated version of the ROMES4 drive test software and the SmartAnalytics web-based software suite launched at MWC 2019.

Understanding 5G NR coverage in real-world environments is important. In par-ticular, new frequencies in the mmWave range, such as 28 GHz, can create uncer-tainties for 5G NR technology providers. In addition to 5G NR coverage, there is also a need to test the network – device connection and KPIs using pre-commer-cial or commercial 5G NR devices.

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Until now, the TSMx6 network scanner could analyze 5G NR signals up to 6 GHz. With the new TSME30DC downconver-ter, the network scanners can analyze signals up to 30 GHz. The system uses an updated version of the ROMES4 drive test software, which already today supports measurements on 5G NR user equipment, e.g., evaluation boards, USB dongles and pre-commercial and commercial smart-phones as they become available. This allows manufacturers of 5G NR techno-logy to gain early insights into a device’s performance and its interaction with real 5G NR networks.

The system includes the recently introduced SmartAnalytics web-based software suite. SmartAnalytics provides intuitive and powerful analytics and drill down functions to analyze the collected measurement data over the entire network test cycle, supporting the analysis and visualization of 5G NR scanner and UE measurements.

www.rohde-schwarz.com/smart

Remote real-time spectrum analyserfor radio-monitoring applications

Link Microtek has recently introduced a remote-controlled version of the SignalShark real-time spectrum analyser from Narda Safety Test Solutions, which provides a powerful and versatile means of carrying out radio monitoring for orga-nisations such as regulatory authorities, mobile phone network operators, police and security services, intelligence agen-cies and the armed forces.

Covering the frequency range 8 kHz to 8 GHz, the SignalShark 3320 Remote Unit is capable of detecting, analysing and classifying a wide range of signals, as well as locating the source of trans-missions using either automatic direction finding or TDOA (time difference of arrival) techniques.

The instrument uses advanced FFT computations to achieve a 40 MHz real-time instantaneous bandwidth with

a 100% probability of intercept (POI) for signals longer than 3.125 µs, which means that there are no gaps in the frequency span and every signal event can be detec-ted reliably, even if it is extremely brief and transient. The instrument is also able to capture the spectrum over the full fre-quency span of 8 kHz to 8 GHz in a single measurement at the impressively fast scan rate of 50 GHz/s.

Featuring an integrated computer running Windows 10, the 3320 provides a very flexible GUI with four task modes to support a wide variety of measurement applications, namely scan mode, real-time spectrum mode, auto DF mode and real-time streaming mode. Measurements are visualised by means of different views. For example, the user can choose to display the frequency domain and channel level at the same time by selecting a spectrum view and a level meter view.

One particularly useful feature is the persistence view in real-time spectrum mode, which makes it very easy to spot interfering signals even if they are only transmitted sporadically. The source of the interference can then be tracked down using dedicated SignalShark direction finding antennas.

www.linkmicrotek.com

Feed through termination covers DC to 1000 MHzFeed through terminations from Broad-Wave Technologies are designed to match RF components with high impedance test equipment such as an oscilloscope.

Model 854-048-FTT is a 50 Ohm device operating from DC to 1000 MHz. It exhi-bits 1.50:1 maximum VSWR, is rated at 1-W average power and has a BNC male / BNC female connector configuration. Type N, SMA and TNC connector confi-gurations are available as well as custom impedances.

www.broadwavetechnologies.com

Optical spectrum analyzer halves evaluation times

Increasing the production line efficiency of optical active devices for 5G mobile and cloud services, the MS9740B spectrum analyser from Anritsu was developed for evaluating the output characteristics of optical active devices used by optical communications systems.

This latest analyzer MS9740B keeps the same measurement-sensitivity performance, functions, and size as the predecessor MS9740A while shortening measurement processing times by 50 percent, slashing optical active device inspection times and increases mass production-line efficiency. Production-line efficiency is increased by optimizing the most commonly used optical receiver bandwidth settings.

The spread of next-generation 5G mobile and Cloud communications ser-vices is expected to increase data traffic volumes massively. Networks suppor-ting this infrastructure are experiencing explosive jumps in network traffic, which demands both increased module pro-duction and shorter inspection times to allow in-time delivery required for the rapid expansion and adoption of faster rate opti-cal modules at 10G, 100G, and 400G bit.

The benchtop MS9740B features wide dynamic range, high resolution, and fast sweep speeds over a wavelength range of 600 to 1750 nm. It supports multimode fiber input and is ideal for manufacturing and evaluating 850-nm band VCSEL modules.

As well as keeping the same functions and performance as its predecessor, the MS9740B slashes measurement proces-sing times by up to half (Rx bandwidth setting: 1 kHz or 200 Hz) while overcoming problems of decreased measurement sensitivity caused by increased processing speed. Moreover, the MS9740B retains optical active device (LD-Module, DFB-LD, FP-LD, LED, WDM and Optical Amplifier (NF and Gain) measurement menu screens for evaluating devices.

www.anritsu.com

SIX DAYS THREE CONFERENCES ONE EXHIBITION

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The European Microwave Exhibition (1st-3rd October 2019)• 10,000 sqm of gross exhibition space• Around 5,000 attendees• 1,700 - 2,000 Conference delegates• In excess of 300 international exhibitors

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International Sales ManagerE: [email protected]

Tel: +44 20 7596 8742

SIX DAYS THREE CONFERENCES ONE EXHIBITION

EUROPE’S PREMIER MICROWAVE, RF,

WIRELESS AND RADAR EVENT

29TH SEPT - 4TH OCT 2019

PORTE DE VERSAILLESPARIS, FRANCE

EUROPE’S PREMIER MICROWAVE, RF, WIRELESS AND RADAR EVENT

The European Microwave Exhibition (1st-3rd October 2019)• 10,000 sqm of gross exhibition space• Around 5,000 attendees• 1,700 - 2,000 Conference delegates• In excess of 300 international exhibitors

(including Asia and US as well as Europe)

INTERESTED IN EXHIBITING?

or visit www.eumweek.com

For International Sales:Richard Vaughan,

International Sales ManagerE: [email protected]

Tel: +44 20 7596 8742

ISO 9001:2015Certified

ar divisions: ar europe • rf/microwave instrumentation • modular rf • sunar rf motionAR Europe Headquarters • +353 61 504300 • www.ar-europe.ieIn Europe, call ar United Kingdom +44 1908 282766 • ar France +33147917530 • ar Deutschland +49 6101 80270 0 • ar Benelux +31 172 423000

www.arworld.usDownload the AR RF/Microwave Mobile App: www.arworld.us/arApp

Copyright © 2019 AR. The orange stripe on AR products is Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM. Off.

Celebrating 50 Years & Still Going Strong

Contact us at [email protected] Come See Us at IMS

Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, Boston, MA, USA, June 4-6, 2019, Booth 572

AR’s Universal Solid State Class A Amplifi ers10kHz - 1000MHz

Single Band 1, 2.5, 10, 25, 50, 100 Watts And Now Up To 250 Watts!Low Cost/High Performance.

Satisfy All Your RF & MicrowaveAmplifi er Needs

www.ar-europe.ie/advantage

Solid State 0.8 to 4 GHz Pulsed Amplifi ersOctave & Sub-Octave Bandwidths & Up to 150,000 Watts

For automotive and military EMC radiated susceptibility testing, as well as radar and communication applications. Longer reliability

and shorter delivery than comparable TWTA’s.

Solid State 0.8 to 4 GHz Pulsed Amplifi ers

Solid State 6 To 18 GHz Single Band Amplifi ersClass A Amplifi ers Up to 40 Watts CW, Now With Liquid Cooling

Unit provides excellent gain fl atness and ∞ to 1 output protection. Ideal for EW & radiated susceptibility testing.

Solid State 700 MHz to 6 GHz, Single Band Amplifi ers,Hybrid Modules to 100 Watts, Benchtops to 500 Watts CW

Class A designs for linear applications; Class AB designs for increased power and effi ciency. Applications include EW,

reliability stress screening and EMC test.

Solid State 700 MHz to 18 GHz Dual Band Amplifi ersAR offers the widest Class A solid state frequency range coverage

in a single amplifi er housing. These amplifi ers come in a split band confi guration from 0.7 to 6.0 GHz up to 60 watts and 6 to 18 GHz up to 40 watts CW. It costs less, weighs less, and takes up less space than two separate amplifi ers.

AR’s Universal Solid State Class A Amplifi ers

Celebrating 50 Years & Still Going StrongCertified

www.arworld.us

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MAY - JUNE 2019 MW · OnePlus, OPPO, Vivo, Xiaomi and ZTE – all of which are participating with...

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