NYU Wireless is building an advanced testbed to speed 5G development

In order to ensure 5G technologies are up to scratch they need testing in the field and that in itself can require a whole other set of technologies.

Take prototyping systems for mmWave (millimetre wave) radio spectrum technology. Currently these use directional horn antennas mounted on mechanically rotatable gimbals, which is not only a mouthful but too large and slow to be suitable for mobile applications.

But thankfully the NYU Wireless research centre is on the case, as it’s announced that it’s building a new programmable platform, which will instead use an electronically steerable phased array with no physically moving parts and almost instant steering.

This testbed, which is funded by the National Science Foundation and uses equipment from SiBEAM and National Instruments, operates in the 60GHz band, which is one of several that the FCC recently decided to regulate to move mmWave technology toward commercialisation.

The testbed provides a high bandwidth and massive baseband processing system, allowing it to create mmWave prototypes capable of very low latency and extremely high data rates.

Millimetre Wave spectrum is key to 5G, as it’s believed that it could provide 200 times the capacity of all of the spectrum currently being used and this new testbed for it will be made available to other university and industry groups, to ensure mmWave technology is developed as fast as possible.

Sohrab Emami, chief architect at SiBEAM, said: “SiBEAM believes that only mmWave spectrum provides sufficient capacity to enable the applications envisaged for 5G services and that electrically steerable phased array antenna technology is fundamental to delivering those services effectively.”