NB-IoT Test Equipments | NB-IoT Measurements on UE,eNB

This page describes NB-IoT test equipments to perform NB-IoT measurements on UE and BS (Base Station) or eNB. The NB-IoT measurements cover both transmitter and receiver test cases for UE and BS.

Introduction:
NB-IoT has been released recently as LTE rel-13 and rel-14 standard revisions. It has been widely used for various IoT applications such as Smart waste management, smart metering, smart parking, smart asset tracking etc. Following are the silent features of NB-IoT i.e. LTE-NB technology.
• Deployment modes: Standalone, In-band LTE, Guard band LTE
• Channel BW : 200 KHz
• Data rate: 250 Kbps (DL), 20 Kbps (Single tone UL)
• Multiple Access : OFDMA in Downlink (15 KHz), SC-FDMA in Uplink (15 KHz) , single tone in uplink (15 KHz/3.75 KHz)
• Modulation Schemes : QPSK (Downlink) ; π/4 QPSk, π/2 BPSK for uplink single tone; QPSK (uplink multitone)
• MIMO : Spatial multiplexing MIMO not supported; Tx diversity with up to 2 Tx antenna; ports supported (single Rx chain)
• Duplex mode : HD FDD
• UE transmit power : 20 dBm or 23 dBm
• Voice support : No
• Frequency bands : 700MHz, 800MHz, 900MHz, Refer NB-IoT Bands >> for more information

NB-IoT Measurements on UE | Transmitter Part

Following table mentions NB-IoT Measurements on UE for Transmitter Part.

Test Case
UE Maximum Output power for UE category NB1
Maximum Power Reduction (MPR) for category NB1
Configured UE transmitted output power for UE category NB1
Output power dynamics
Maximum output power for category NB1
ON/OFF time mask for category NB1
General ON/OFF time mask for category NB1
NPRACH time mask for category NB1
Power control for category NB1
Power control absolute power tolerance for category NB1
Power control relative power tolerance for category NB1
Aggregate power control tolerance for category NB1
Transmit signal quality
Frequency Error for cat-NB1
Transmit modulation
EVM for cat-NB1
Carrier leakage for cat-NB1
In-band emissions for non allocated RB for cat-NB1
Output RF spectrum emissions
Occupied BW for cat-NB1
Out of band emission
Spectrum emission mask for cat-NB1
ACLR for cat-NB1
Spurious emission for cat-NB1
Transmitter spurious emissions for cat-NB1
Spurious emission band UE co-existence for cat-NB1
Transmit intermodulation for cat-NB1

NB-IoT Measurements on UE | Receiver Part

Following table mentions NB-IoT Measurements on UE for Receiver Part.

Test Case
Reference sensitivity level for UE cat-NB1
Reference sensitivity level without repetitions for cat-NB1
Reference sensitivity level with repetitions for cat-NB1
Maximum input level for UE cat-NB1
ACS (Adjacent Channel Selectivity) for UE cat-NB1
Blocking characteristics
In-band blocking for cat-NB1
Out of band blocking for cat-NB1
Spurious response for UE cat-NB1
Intermodulation characteristics
Wide band intermodulation for UE cat-NB1

NB-IoT Measurements on Base Station (BS) | Transmitter Part

Following table mentions NB-IoT Measurements on Base Station (BS or eNB) for Transmitter Part.

Test Case
Stand-alone, In-band and Guard band tests
Time alignment error for Tx diversity
EVM and frequency error
ACLR (Adjacent Channel Power)
SEM ( Spectrum Emission Mask )

NB-IoT Measurements on Base Station (BS) | Receiver Part

Following table mentions NB-IoT Measurements on Base Station (BS or eNB) for Receiver Part.

Test Case
Transmit diversity testing
UE signal generation testing with channel environment

NB-IoT test Equipments

Following table lists NB-IoT test equipments.

Test Equipments	Company with features (if any)
R&S^®ROMES4	It is analysis and network optimization software from R&S
R&S^®TSMA scanner with above software	Available from R&S
NB-IoT Signal Generator	It is used to test receiver part of UE/eNB. Keysight and R&S are popular vendors for this.
NB-IoT Signal Analyzer	It is used to test transmitter part of UE/eNB. Keysight and R&S are popular vendors for this.