Keysight Technologies, Inc. has launched the 5G Virtual Drive Test (VDT) Toolset to help 5G device makers, mobile operators and chipset manufacturers qualify end-user experience in an automated, field-realistic laboratory environment.

Keysight's 5G VDT Toolset combines the company's channel and network emulation capabilities with collection, logging and scripting tools to create the industry's first real-world test environment for validating 5G devices under a wide range of network signaling and radio channel conditions. The 5G VDT Toolset enables a growing ecosystem of device makers to analyze the performance of 5G new radio (NR) devices deployed in non-standalone (NSA) or standalone (SA) networks under various mobility scenarios.

"Keysight's 5G VDT Toolset highlights our commitment to offer customers high-value end-to-end test solutions based on the company's technology and application expertise," said Kailash Narayanan, vice president and general manager for Keysight's wireless test group. "Our goal is to improve performance visibility of 5G NR devices, enabling mobile operators to deliver advanced 5G services that rely on high-performing 5G devices."

The 5G VDT Toolset is part of Keysight's network emulation solution portfolio. It leverages Keysight's 5G PROPSIM Channel Emulator, UXM 5G Wireless Platform and Nemo field measurement solutions for 5G design, conformance and carrier validation across the protocol stack. Major wireless equipment manufacturers and mobile operators use Keysight's virtual drive test solutions to automatically benchmark mobile devices, as well as repeatably reproduce specific field issues in a lab environment.

Keysight's 5G VDT Toolset incorporates automation in a software-based environment to simplify device testing and 5G NR standards compliance validation across any 3GPP-defined frequency band.

Customer benefits of Keysight's 5G VDT Toolset include:

• Access to ready-made test cases for validating 5G devices performance when operating in challenging scenarios, such as in urban cities or on high-speed trains with extreme radio channel, propagation or mobility conditions
• Ability to leverage data captured in the field to create customized test cases, as well as comprehensive and in-depth performance analysis
• Automated, repeatable testing and advanced troubleshooting across the workflow using advanced spatial channel models, to ensure flexible and cost-effective drive testing of new 5G devices in a controlled lab-based environment