Prisma Engineering: LTE Simulator
FPGAs at the heart of reconfigurable radio test equipment for cellular networks.
LTE, the new 3GPP standard for broadband mobility, disrupts the existing paradigms of cellular networks. Evolved Node-B’s, the radio-access part of the LTE system, are the edge between the radio and all-Internet Protocol core networks. This architecture makes it impossible to monitor and test the equivalent of intermediate links in the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS). An effective testing of LTE network elements must involve the radio interface.
This is exactly the challenge addressed by Prisma Engineering’s Line Server Unit (LSU) UeSIM LTE. The simulator is a complete solution for all LTE testing needs, allowing network equipment designers to stress and monitor both the air interface and the core network.
Three Xilinx FPGAs reside at the heart of this advanced simulator, enabling a high level of software-defined radio reconfiguration. Prisma Engineering needed a powerful and reprogrammable architecture in order to gain the flexibility to address a multitude of radio access standards using the same board.
Additional Information
- Read the complete article, “LTE Simulator Relies on Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGAs,” in Xcell Journal Issue 72