ASTRI demonstrates next generation Machine Type Communications (MTC) UE solution with Rohde & Schwarz at Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2016

(Hong Kong, 22 February 2016) Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI) performs a live demonstration of its next generation LTE Machine Type Communications (MTC) UE with the Rohde & Schwarz (R&S) SMW200A vector signal generator at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

In the demonstration, a live 3GPP Release 12 TD-LTE Cat. 0 MTC UE data channel is established with ASTRI’s MTC UE receiver. The standard compliant signal is generated by R&S SMW200A vector signal generator with internal LTE-A waveform generator. ASTRI’s UE demodulates the received signal and displays real time statistics on the control computer. The display reveals the advanced performance of ASTRI’s low cost and low power MTC solution based on ASTRI’s commercial LTE terminal technologies. While the next generation MTC standard is still evolving, ASTRI’s MTC solution is developed based on a Software Defined Radio (SDR) platform. The software based design allows fast adaptation to multiple MTC standards, such as eMTC and NB-IoT. ASTRI is developing related architectures and algorithms for potential MTC technologies, such as extended power saving modes, narrow band LTE, GMSK modulation, etc.

ASTRI has been devoted to LTE products research and development since 2008. As one of the leaders in LTE and LTE-Advanced terminal and small cell technologies, ASTRI provides the first market-ready reference design for terminal baseband cores and small cell supporting both TD-LTE and LTE FDD. ASTRI’s LTE technologies have been employed in partners’ chips and system solutions serving public and private network markets. Its core network technology has been successfully transferred to multiple companies. ASTRI is also actively working on the 4.5/5G research and development on different cellular technologies, including Ultra-Density Network (UDN), massive MIMO, Device-to-Device (D2D), Vehicular-to-Everything (V2X), License Assisted Access (LAA), Cloud-RAN etc.

ASTRI’s MTC UE demonstration is carried out at Sunnada booth (Hall 5, Stand 5G70) in MWC Barcelona, 2016, being held at Fira Gran Via, Barcelona, Spain, from 22 to 25 February 2016.

ASTRI’s MTC UE baseband solutions supports.

  • 3GPP release 12 MTC :
  • Peak data rate reduction
  • Half duplex
  • Single antenna receiver
  • 3GPP release 13 eMTC:
  • Maximum 6 PRB bandwidth
  • Lower UE power class
  • Coverage enhancement through small/large number of repetition
  • Cross-subframe scheduling
  • M-PDCCH
  • 3GPP release 13 NB-IoT:
  • Single-tone/Multi-tone transmission for uplink: 3.75kHz, 15kHz
  • NB-PDCCH, NB-PBCH and NB-PDSCH
  • NB-PSS, NB-SSS and NB-RS
  • NB-PUSCH
  • Pure preamble based PRACH with single-tone transmission