5G channel sounding basics | 5G channel sounding measurements

This page covers 5G channel sounding basics. It mentions 5G channel sounding measurements and 5G channel sounding test equipments.

About channel: The path between transmitter and receiver through which information flows in various forms (electrical, electromagnetic, binary etc.) is known as channel. The path can be wired or wireless. We will refer here wireless channel or RF channel.

During wireless system development mathematical model of channel is designed and used during system simulation to achieve desired BER/PER results at various SNR. The different wireless systems have different channel models based on frequency, terrain, mobility, path loss etc.
Refer Channel models➤.

During RF channel model development various parameters such as delay, path loss, absorption, multipath, reflection, fading, doppler effect etc. are considered. These parameters affect the characteristics of RF channel.

Function of channel sounding: The purpose of channel sounding is to understand various characteristics of RF channel. In other words channel sounding refers to measurement or estimation of channel characteristics. The channel sounding technique employed in 5G network is known as 5G channel sounding.

This will help in channel model development. This also helps in channel estimation and channel equalization algorithms used at complex wireless receivers in 4G and 5G based standards.

Following are the channel sounding techniques.
• Preamble or pattern Based: Using known symbols or patterns available at the receiver. This technique uses corrupted symbol or pattern and reference pattern already available to determine channel characteristics for channel sounding. Reference symbols such as pilots inserted between the OFDM symbols can also be used for channel estimation. Refer channel estimation equalization matlab code using preamble.
• Rusk sounding: It generates frequency tones at all the frequencies available in desired bandwidth. These tones are transmitted across the path between the transmitter and receiver to determine channel behaviour at all the frequencies.

5G Channel sounding measurements

For 5G channel sounding following parameters are used to determine CIR (Channel Impulse response) at different millimeter wave frequencies such as 28 GHz, 38 GHz and 72 GHz.
• Instantaneous parameters: Power delay profile, path loss and path delay, AoA (Angle of Arrival), AoD (Angle of Departure), Doppler frequency shift etc.
• The other statistical parameters used for modeling: Angular speed of AoA and AoD, power angular spectrum, correlation matrix, rician factor (K), doppler spectrum etc.

Keysight 5G millimeter wave channel sounding solutions

• Keysight Technologies offers 5G waveform generation and 5G waveform analysis hardware and software.
• The keysight solution helps in channel impulse response (CIR) estimation.
• The hardware support upto 44 GHz frequency range with 1GHz bandwidth.
• It supports 4 or 8 number of MIMO channels.
• Visit https://www.keysight.com for more information.

REFERENCE:
https://www.5gworkshops.com/5GCM.html