Search Application Notes & Cards
Learn how to configure Rohde & Schwarz products to fit your application. Search our database by product, technology, or application to find relevant technical documents.
Search Application Notes & Cards
Learn how to configure Rohde & Schwarz products to fit your application. Search our database by product, technology, or application to find relevant technical documents.
50 Results
Source measure units R&S®NGU401 and R&S®NGU201 are capable of precise current measurements from sub-microampere up to ampere. This application note provides a tool which generates a voltage or current sweep using the arbitrary function of the instruments. A fast log captures voltage and current values during the sweep. Subsequently the application program determines the voltage and current value for each sweep step and plots the results in an I-V curve .The tool can be utilized to characterize all kinds of two-pole devices like diodes, LEDs and solar panels.This application note can also be used in connection with DC power supplies R&S®NGM201 and R&S®NGM202.
15-Feb-2021 | AN-No. 1GP129
All channels of DC power supplies R&S®NGL200 and R&S®NGM200 are isolated against the grounding equipment conductor and against the digital ground of the instrument. Therefore, channels can be connected in parallel for increasing the current capability, or in series for achieving higher voltages or dual-voltage supplies. In the case of parallel and serial connections it is usually desired to switch all channels simultaneously on and off for protecting the supplied circuitry and for avoiding overcurrent on other power supply channels.This application note describes how to connect and configure DC power supplies R&S®NGL200 and R&S®NGM200 for synchronized on and off switching of all channels across multiple power supplies.
15-Jun-2020 | AN-No. 1GP126
This application note provides an application program and instructions for performing speech quality tests and delay measurements in a live network, using the R&S®UPV audio analyzer.
14-Dec-2017 | AN-No. 1GA68
This application program supports the logging and fast logging functionality of the power supplies R&S® NGM200, NGU201 and NGU401. Standard logging is also supported with power supply R&S® NGL200 and NGP800. Power supplies R&S® NGA100 and NGE100 are supported in the data collection mode. Charting functionality is available for logged voltage, current and power values.
14-Nov-2019 | AN-No. 1GP122
This application note is about measurement accuracy of the LCR-Meters R&S®LCX100 and R&S®LCX200. On the R&S®LCX100 and R&S®LCX200, the accuracy is calculated in real time, depending on the instrument settings and on the measured impedance. It is displayed on the lower part of the instrument display. If no test instrument is available, or information about the measurement accuracy at a certain measured impedance is sought without having a DUT at hand, this accuracy calculation tool provides the desired values.The document explains the background of the calculation and the prerequisites for installing and running the program. The installer provided installs the program on your PC.
11-May-2023 | AN-No. 1GP138
Versatile Software Tool for Rohde & Schwarz Instruments
RSCommander is a versatile software tool for a wide range of Rohde & Schwarz spectrum-, network analyzers, signal generators and oscilloscopes. It allows for automatic instrument discovery, making screenshots, reading traces, file transfer and simple script creation.
24-Dec-2017 | AN-No. 1MA074
The instrument setup provided in this application note allows to analyze a degraded speech signal stored into a wave file and to display its FFT spectrum and waveform.
05-Sep-2014 | AN-No. 1GA66
Crucial for proper operation of mobile networks - Part 2 of the series on Cable and Antenna verification
Key points: Critical Infrastructure: Learn why the antenna system, as part of mobile base stations, is irreplaceable and demands meticulous attention due to its impact on network quality and availability.Vulnerability to Environmental Factors: Understand the challenges posed by weather conditions and environmental stresses on antenna systems, highlighting the importance of robust design and maintenance.Fundamental Properties: Delve into the core concepts of antenna systems, gaining insights into fundamental properties of antennas and the antenna cables.Measurement Techniques: Explore discontinuity or distance to fault measurements to identify reflections of forward RF energy due to impedance changes (connector, compression or kink of a cable, etc.).
18-Jun-2024 | AN-No. 8NT16
Best practices for national regulatory authorities
Key points:Importance of field measurements: Traditional network planning tools and models only offer an estimated view of mobile coverage. Field measurements are conducted under real geographical and load conditions, and therefore provide a more accurate picture and can discover interferences more effectively. Coverage investigations: When deploying a mobile network, operators must adhere to regulatory standards and licensing conditions. As a result, regulatory authorities carry out field measurements on a regular or ad hoc basis to validate compliance or investigate customer complaints. This process identifies coverage gaps and areas of poor network quality, enabling regulatory authorities to take actions to enhance service quality for consumers and guide network expansion.Foster competition: If the field measurements of the coverage and performance are performed on a scale representative of a given country, the transparency of these results can promote healthy competition between operators and better service for consumers, which is essential for economic growth and social development.Measurement Techniques: The harmonized methodology for measuring and evaluating data throughput and QoE based on popular services is described in ETSI TR 103 559.
15-Apr-2024 | AN-No. 8NT14
P25 and FRMCS scanning
Key points: Critical Infrastructure: Learn about mission-critical communication for various agencies who deal with Public Safety such as first responders, police, firefighters, medics and its crucial role in ensuring safety of society.Reliability of Communication: Understand the challenges posed by mission-critical communication, highlighting performance and reliability needs and special requirements such as safe group communications.Technology Migration: Delve into the migration of mission-critical communication from long-standing narrow-band technologies to broadband use cases considering migration timelines.Measurement Techniques: Explore network measurement methods for passive testing of legacy MCX technologies planned to be used in the networks for quite some time (a later release of the document will focus on the broadband successors)
12-Mar-2024 | AN-No. 8NT12
Mobile network operators worldwide face cost pressures and escalating network complexity. The advent of 5G-NR has ushered in new use cases and flexibility, but it also comes with more stringent performance and availability requirements.Machine Learning can serve as a catalyst for the market to unearth deep insights that would otherwise remain concealed. It can also significantly streamline everyday tasks by fostering a smarter system that guides users through their routine work processes, rather than obliging them to repeat each (manual) step. Rohde & Schwarz Mobile Network Testing has focused its efforts on delivering Machine Learning use cases that distill relevant insights from drive testing data, thereby offering substantial benefits to users.This educational note explains the motivation and reasoning why this kind of approach is needed, what are the benefits of the machine learning offering and it takes a deeper look into how it can be used in various levels of statistical and technical analysis. Finally, this document provides real measurement results and analysis findings based on the Rohde & Schwarz post processing SW suite SmartAnalytics and its machine learning based features Call Stability Score and Network Utilization Rating.
28-Feb-2024 | AN-No. 8NT10
Part 1 of the Cable and Antenna verification series – essential for Mobile Networks
Key points: Critical Infrastructure: Learn why the antenna system, as part of mobile base stations, is irreplaceable and demands meticulous attention due to its impact on network quality and availability.Vulnerability to Environmental Factors: Understand the challenges posed by weather conditions and environmental stresses on antenna systems, highlighting the importance of robust design and maintenance.Fundamental Properties: Delve into the core concepts of antenna systems, gaining insights into their transmit and receive characteristics, which serve as the foundation for effective measurement and verification.Measurement Techniques: Explore various measurement methods for antenna systems, focusing on return loss and decoupling, and their significance in assessing system performance and integrity.
23-Feb-2024 | AN-No. 8NT11
With all these new flexibilities introduced with 5G, the radio access has become more complex to understand and analyze. More network interfaces and RAN configuration parameters have to be managed and the RAN and in particular the connection control, mobility and measurement reporting are decisive for the network performance. It will be vital for the system experts and radio engineers to gain knowledge and evolve their methods and tools to facilitate the work to optimize and troubleshoot 5G and 4G RAN performance. Thus, tools are needed that allow for easier understanding of the message flows in the radio protocols. The R&S®ROMES4 KPIs and Smart Events will help doing the work much easier and quicker. They are defined for a key set of LTE, EN-DC and NR RRC connection control and mobility procedures where the performance is crucial to achieve high quality network performance. Trouble shooting problematic cases and optimization of RAN protocols are key drivers to improve the mobile network performance with R&S®ROMES4.
28-Jun-2022 | AN-No. 8NT06
3GPP TS36.141 defines conformance tests for EUTRA base stations (eNodeB). Release 14 (LTEAdvanced Pro) added several tests, such as those for enhanced Licensed Assisted Access (eLAA).This application note describes how all required performance tests (TS36.141 Chapter 8) can be performed quickly and easily by using vector signal generators from Rohde & Schwarz.Examples illustrate the manual operation. A free software program enables and demonstrates remote operation.The LTE base station transmitter (Tx) tests (TS36.141 Chapter 6) are described in Application Note 1MA154.The LTE base station receiver (Rx) tests (TS36.141 Chapter 7) are described in Application Note 1MA195.
11-May-2016 | AN-No. 1MA162
Rohde & Schwarz mobile network testing solutions enable operators to efficiently increase network capacity via hardware-related, capacity-enhancing features such as antenna tilt optimization, carrier aggregation, 4x4 MIMO and 6-sector sites.
09-Aug-2016
3GPP TS36.141 defines conformance tests for EUTRA base stations (eNodeB). Release 14 added several tests, especially for enhanced License Assisted Access (eLAA).This application note describes how all required receiver (Rx) tests (TS36.141 Chapter 7) can be performed quickly and easily by using vector signal generators from Rohde & Schwarz. A few tests additionally require spectrum analyzers from Rohde & Schwarz.Examples illustrate the manual operation. A free software program enables and demonstrates remote operation.The LTE base station transmitter (Tx) tests (TS36.141 Chapter 6) are described in Application Note 1MA154.The LTE base station performance (Px) tests (TS36.141 Chapter 8) are described in Application Note 1MA162.
11-May-2016 | AN-No. 1MA195
Unique automatic level controlled (ALC) based test setup using the R&S®ZVA vector network analyzer and R&S®BBA150 broadband amplifiers provides highly accurate and reproducible results in minimum test time.
27-Sep-2013
RF system noise contributions define receiver capabilities and sensitivity. The noise figure measures how the critical components affect the signal.
28-Jan-2022
The topic of this application note is mobile phone measurements – in theory and in practice. It discusses measurements according to the most common standard in use today, GSM.The first, theoretical portion of this application note covers digital modulation and access methods in general. This is followed by an overview of the specific characteristics of the GSM standard as well as a summary of the most important mobile radio measurements.The second, practical portion of this application note covers some of these measurements in detail and runs through them step by step. These measurements can be performed by small groups in labs.The measurements and analysis of the results are intended to illustrate the theoretical portion of the application note and to deepen the reader's understanding.All measurements are performed using the R&S®CMW500 wideband radio communication tester and an off the shelf mobile phone.
22-Aug-2014 | AN-No. 1MA231
R&S®Server-Based Testing helps reduce test times for workloads that can be parallelized. 5G New Radio (5G NR) multicarrier signals are an ideal workload because each component carrier can be analyzed independently and in parallel. In an example EVM measurement, scenario test times are reduced significantly even when receiving I/Q data from just a single instrument.
13-Sep-2021
The R&S®CMW wideband radio communication tester platform (R&S®CMW500, R&S®CMW270) uses high accuracy distance measurements (HADM) with phase based ranging (PBR) for a comprehensive and fully automated test solution to verify Bluetooth® Low Energy physical layer functionality
06-Sep-2023
Vector Network Analyzers (VNA) are gaining popularity in the Signal Integrity community as time domain measurement and analysis tools. VNAs with 8 ports or more can provide significant decreases in test time by migrating from a 4-port measurement system to an 8-port measurement system. For tight tolerance DUTs that are barely within the test limit lines, small increases in accuracy can be realized by testing all of the test parameters at once, because the entire test setup is at the same temperature. This application note discusses the thermal advantages of testing an 8-port DUT with the R&S ZNBT VNA. The use of the ZNBT to assess and debug two differential pairs in a 20-inch backplane is presented.
18-Mar-2020 | AN-No. 1EZ83_0E
Modern societies worldwide depend on the performance, reliability and security of critical infrastructures and networks. There is a plethora of “new verticals” such as manufacturing, warehouse, mining, ports or other critical infrastructure, just to name a few. These “new vertical” use cases all have one common requirement: the mobile network needs to provide a superior performance compared to a commercial mobile network. In such environments 5G brings new capabilities to build fast and secure campus or private networks tuned to higher performance, which can increase productivity and efficiency. To be successful in these business-critical use cases, the wireless networks need to be as reliable as the wired ones. This educational note describes the different test methods to be able to verify the superior network performance and to help finding root causes of potential problems limiting the performance. We distinguish between passive tests and active tests.
11-Aug-2023 | AN-No. 8NT09
For NB-IoT applications to function correctly, sufficient network coverage is required. Coverage must be measured to ensure a robust NB-IoT connection. Rohde & Schwarz mobile network testing provides a unique combined test solution that accurately measures the DL coverage using network scanners. It measures the device/network interaction, UL behavior, protocol, signaling load and energy efficiency during communications using NB-IoT devices connected to R&S®ROMES.
20-Feb-2018
LTE-M (also known as Cat M1) is a machine type communication (MTC) standard for IoT applications, specified by 3GPP. This application note provides and overview of the technology, the details of the standard and summarizes the R&S®TSMx scanner features for LTE-M measurements.
26-Jul-2019 | AN-No. 8NT04
Multiple input multiple output (MIMO) technology is an integral part of 3GPP E-UTRA long term evolution (LTE). As part of MIMO, beamforming is also used in LTE. This application note provides a brief summary of the transmission modes (TM) in LTE and describes the beamforming measurements for base stations (BS) and user equipment (UE). The T&M options using various Rohde & Schwarz instruments are also presented.
26-Apr-2013 | AN-No. 1MA187
Spectrum scans are beneficial for many use-cases such as troubleshooting, interference detection and interference hunting, or verification tasks like scheduler verification or other engineering tasks. A time-gated spectrum scan, which is a power spectrum scan which applies a time gate on uplink/downlink slots/symbols and/or the guard period reveals even more details in uplink/downlink or guard period power spectrum. This allows to focus on the uplink / downlink or guard period power spectrum in 5G NR TDD networks. This educational note explains use cases for spectrum measurements, the complexity in 5G TDD and its technology basics, and which problems can be solved with the described solution. The software used is R&S®ROMES4 together with a R&S®TSMx6 drive and walk test scanner.
21-Sep-2023 | AN-No. 8NT08
Verify and optimize your product design under realistic fading conditions in a deterministic lab environment that allows repeatable measurements using standardized and user-defined fading profiles.
27-Oct-2020
More frequency bands and larger dynamic ranges increase the number of test points required in characterization and production of the latest RF frontends (RFFE). Actively managing test time and cost while maintaining quality is more important than ever before.
08-Jun-2020
Heinz Mellein, Manuel Mielkech 8NT01 MIMO Channel,Field Measurements,MIMO Evaluation,R&STSMx,R&SROMES Assessing a MIMO Channel Heinz Mellein, Manuel Mielkech 8NT01 MIMO Channel,Field Measurements,MIMO Evaluation,R&STSMx,R&SROMES Related products
31-Aug-2017 | AN-No. 8NT01