5G NR FR1 Non-Standalone UE RF Conformance Testing

EN-DC Mode According to 3GPP 38.521-3

5G New Radio (NR) is a radio access technology (RAT) specified by 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) in release 15 technical standard which was first published in 2018. It is designed to enhance the spectrum efficiency to meet the diverse needs of wireless communication applications, such as enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), massive machine type communications (mMTC) and ultra-reliable and low latency communications (URLLC).

Two deployment modes are defined for 5G NR technology

► non-standalone (NSA) mode involving both E-UTRA (access technology used for LTE) and 5G NR RAT

► standalone (SA) mode allows the user equipment (UE) to access 5G core network (5GC) over LTE or 5G NR RAT

All 5G NR air interface related core specifications as well as associated test specifications are included in the 3GPP 38 series specifications. In an UE product lifecycle, UE vendor is obliged to go through the device certification process by passing all the required conformance tests which include RF, protocol, performance tests before official launch of the product. RF conformance testing is of course essential for the market access. The conformity of 3GPP specification has to be ensured even in the early product R&D phase.

This application note aims to guide the R&D reader through the 5G NR Frequency Range 1 (FR1) NSA RF UE conformance test according to 3GPP38.521-3 based on mobile radio tester R&S®CMX and associated web user interface R&S®CMsquares in interactive operation mode, i.e. manual operation mode, through test configuration examples. After reading this application note, the reader should be able to conduct 3GPP RF conformance tests with proper settings manually and understand measurement results in R&S®CMsquares.