PCTEST Expands 4G/LTE Over-the-Air and Antenna Testing Capabilities with Rohde & Schwarz

PCTEST Engineering Laboratory, Inc. (PCTEST LAB), an accredited testing laboratory for wireless testing and certification, has expanded its over-the-air (OTA) conformance testing capabilities with the purchase of a CTIA-compliant R&S TS8991 Wireless Performance Test Chamber (WPTC) from Rohde & Schwarz. The R&S TS8991 OTA Test System is configured with hardware and software extensions for legacy and LTE A-GPS, a R&S ZND vector network analyzer for passive antenna measurements and faster system calibrations, and a second antenna boom with additional R&S NRP power sensors for faster total radiated power (TRP) measurements. The entire system is controlled via R&S AMS32 wireless performance software.

As the number of technologies and the variety of mobile devices continue to increase, the ability to verify a device’s radiated performance is becoming more important to ensure end-user quality of experience (QoE). For 4G/LTE, there are major developments involving the internet of things (IoT), machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, LTE at 5GHz (LTE-U), assisted global navigation satellite system (A-GNSS), and Carrier Aggregation (CA), which are driving the need for improved as well as additional OTA tests required for both carrier acceptance and industry conformance test plans.

“As wireless devices become more specialized and continue to push the boundaries of transmission efficiency, the ability to fully characterize a device in an over-the-air environment is becoming more critical,” says Randy Ortanez, President of PCTEST Lab. “Every day we are seeing the acceptance bar being raised and more test cases defined from operators and standard bodies such as CTIA and 3GPP. To meet these growing demands, we are very pleased to be working with our partner Rohde & Schwarz who is able to deliver and support a complete turn-key solution for our OTA testing needs.”