Keysight Cellular Base Station Design Emulators

This video introduces Keysight Cellular Base Station Design Emulators, an integrated portfolio of solutions engineered to enable end-to-end validation of 5G base stations, ORAN systems, and next-generation cellular infrastructure. These emulators recreate real-world RF propagation, user mobility, traffic models, and core-network behavior entirely within a lab environment, supporting subsystem, system-level, and deployment-ready performance testing. These tools help engineers optimize RF performance, evaluate protocol behavior, validate KPIs, debug early-stage designs, and accelerate time-to-deployment.

Keysight cellular emulation solutions are divided into two major categories: ORAN Emulators and User Equipment (UE) Emulators. ORAN emulators provide precise and scalable emulation of ORAN architecture components, including Radio Units (RUs), Distributed Units (DUs), Central Units (CUs), the 5G Core, and the RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC). They support functional, performance, and interoperability testing across ORAN fronthaul, midhaul, and backhaul interfaces. These tools allow engineers to replace one or more parts of a live 5G network with known-good components, isolating performance issues and validating protocol conformance under controlled and repeatable conditions.

Keysight UE emulators support scalable testing of LTE eNodeBs and 5G gNodeBs by simulating thousands of realistic devices, user behaviors, and traffic patterns. These carrier-grade platforms combine real-time protocol emulation, application-layer traffic generation, enhanced KPI analysis, beam management, and mobility modeling. They support functional testing, extreme-load testing, and high-mobility scenarios to help engineers fine-tune designs and accelerate deployment.

The portfolio also includes specialized toolsets. Keysight 5G ORAN Pre-Silicon Emulators fully emulate the ORAN protocol stack for early functional, timing, and conformance testing without physical hardware. They integrate with Keysight Open RAN Studio, Signal Studio Pro, vector signal-analysis tools, and leading third-party software, enabling multivendor interoperability testing and streamlined root-cause analysis. Time Sync Analyzers unify O-D-U emulation, hardware-timed impairment injection, SyncE/PTP validation, and multiport synchronization measurement with timestamp resolution down to 1 ns to ensure accurate timing and synchronization across ORAN fronthaul and distributed MIMO antenna systems.
 

Keysight Base Station Performance Testing systems emulate realistic radio environments using fading, interference, beamforming, and load-generation capabilities across sub-6 GHz, millimeter-wave, and NTN bands. With scalable RF channel counts, wide bandwidth, real-time fading, and automated KPI workflows, these tools support lab and production validation. Cellular Virtual Drive Test Emulation replicates mobility behaviors, RF propagation, and geographical/terrain-influenced conditions derived from actual drive-test data. This enables controlled, repeatable validation of handovers, throughput, beam-management performance, and multi-cell mobility scenarios across FR1 and FR2 without conducting physical drive tests.

Together, Keysight’s Cellular Base Station Design Emulator portfolio enables engineers to fully model, validate, and optimize 5G systems from early design through deployment. By bringing real-world RF, user-device, and network-core behaviors into the lab, Keysight provides a comprehensive platform for next-generation wireless infrastructure testing.
 

Key features include:

• Cellular ORAN & UE Emulators: Support subsystem-to-system-level validation using scalable ORAN and UE emulation platforms.
• ORAN Emulators: Emulate RUs, DUs, CUs, 5G Core, and RIC for fronthaul, midhaul, and backhaul testing using real-world traffic and protocol behaviors.
• UE Emulators: Simulate thousands of realistic LTE/5G devices, generating real-time protocol and application-layer traffic for load and mobility testing.
• 5G ORAN Pre-Silicon Emulators: Fully emulate ORAN protocol stack for early functional, timing, and conformance testing without physical hardware.
• Time Sync Analyzers: Integrate multiport sync measurement, O-D-U emulation, impedance injection, and SyncE/PTP validation with 1 ns timestamp accuracy.
• Base Station Performance Testing: Validate gNodeB performance with scalable RF channels, real-time fading, beamforming, NTN simulation, and automated KPI workflows.
• Virtual Drive Test Emulation: Recreate real-world RF propagation and mobility conditions in the lab using drive-test-derived channel models for FR1/FR2 testing.
   

Keysight cellular base station design emulators enable end-to-end validation of 5G infrastructure by recreating real-world RF, mobility, user behavior, and core-network conditions entirely from the lab.