Industry-leading Technology Enables Customers to Increase Test Speed
While Reducing Costs
AUSTIN, Texas – June 5, 2023 – NI (NASDAQ: NATI) and Spirent
Communications today announced the first and only O-RU (Radio Unit) test
solution that uses application layer testing with any commercial device,
providing comprehensive, real-time O-RU validation. This unique
capability enables customers to validate their systems faster and in a
real-world environment while reducing costs – all in one highly capable
validation solution.
Traditional testing of O-RAN systems has been very time-intensive and
cost-prohibitive due to its need for engineers to manually test their
systems from beginning to end. Built on common technologies, the
Spirent/NI joint solution combines Spirent’s software and emulation
environment, including pre-built test cases, with NI’s high-performance
instrumentation, providing a robust and integrated O-RU validation
solution that improves time to market with full automation through a
single, intuitive GUI while also minimizing instrument cost and
footprint.
“Spirent and NI have a long history of providing joint solutions that
enable our customers to accelerate the production of their products,”
said Chen Chang, Senior Director, Strategic Business Development, NI.
“Combining Spirent’s best-in-class methodology with NI’s versatile and
powerful product lineup is a critical step in standardizing and
accelerating O-RAN ORU development.”
“Major chipset developers, equipment manufacturers, and carriers around
the world are already benefitting from NI and Spirent working together
to provide innovative solutions,” said James Kimery, Vice President of
Product Management, Lifecycle Service Assurance, Spirent. “This latest
solution for the Open RAN space demonstrates how our continued
collaboration is addressing critical testing gaps created by
disaggregating the RAN that will expand the market by unambiguously
validating true multivendor interoperability.”
The solution wraps the O-RU with a real-time O-DU emulator through a
fully compliant O-RAN 7.2 interface, a CU emulator, a core network
emulator, and a commercial UE emulator for real-world Interoperability
Testing (IOT) to deliver a testbed capable of running real-world test
scenarios in the lab. Customers can also use a commercial device in
place of the UE emulator to validate all timing, full throughput
including 4×4 MIMO, and any system-level test that an O-RU would
experience in a real-world deployment scenario to test true performance
and interoperability at a functional level rather than at the interface.
On the production side, NI also has an O-RAN O-RU APT test system which
uses the same O-DU emulation and combines this with NI’s PXIe-5841 VST
for parametric measurements for best-in-class efficiency with unmatched
measurement accuracy.
This test system is highly configurable, real-time, and ORAN FH
compliant. It enables customers to configure the O-DU to emulate various
timing profiles, test corner cases, and validate the system performance
under real-time conditions. In addition, having the same test systems
used in validation facilitates a streamlined O-RU development process
that connects validation to production and drastically reduces test
time, cost, and development effort.
About Spirent
Spirent Communications plc. (LSE: SPT) is the leading global provider of
automated test and assurance solutions for networks, cybersecurity, and
positioning. The company provides innovative products, services and
managed solutions that address the test, assurance, and automation
challenges of a new generation of technologies, including 5G, SD-WAN,
cloud, autonomous vehicles and beyond. From the lab to the real world,
Spirent helps companies deliver on their promise to their customers of a
new generation of connected devices and technologies. For more
information, please visit www.spirent.com [1] and follow us on LinkedIn
[2], Twitter [3] and Facebook [4].
About NI:
At NI, we bring together the people, ideas and technology so forward
thinkers and creative problem solvers can take on humanity’s biggest
challenges. From data and automation to research and validation, we
provide the tailored, software-connected systems engineers and
enterprises need to Engineer Ambitiously(tm) every day.
_National Instruments, NI, ni.com, LabVIEW and Engineer Ambitiously are
trademarks of National Instruments Corporation. Other product and
company names listed are trademarks or trade names of their respective
companies._
