5G wireless communications brings with it a number of challenges, not least for test and measurement. Not only is the upcoming standard likely to be a sprawling document that covers many different possible frequencies and modes but it will have much tighter requirements for system attributes above the RF interface such as round-trip latency. The tighter timings will be needed to support new applications such as autonomous driving and long-distance robotic control.
“The latency of 4G on average is 80ms. For car-to-car communications you need sub-1ms latencies,” says Rahim Tafazolli, professor of mobile and satellite communication systems at the University of Surrey.
The need for 5G to expand into new frequency ranges comes from a parallel requirement for higher data rates to support video and interactive gaming: “We have done a study on this and said we need at least 100Mbit/s of bandwidth [for individual users]. That requires 10Gbit...