Anritsu has announced that their Signaling Tester MD8475A now supports 98% of conformance test cases (defined as EN16454) for emergency call (eCall) communications modules, expanding their test solution portfolio for connected car designs. By reaching 98% coverage for eCall conformance test cases, the MD8475A provides designers developing emergency call chipsets and devices with a reliable, accurate and comprehensive test tool to verify designs and assist in the system rollout of eCall scheduled for April 2018 in Europe.
This new release is designed to help secure stable eCall module development and production while improving reliability of emergency call devices. An EU Commission project, eCall is designed to secure rapid emergency assistance for automobile accident victims. As soon as an accident occurs, the in-vehicle system (IVS) detects the collision and initiates an automatic or manual emergency call to a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) to provide vital information, such as location, current time, passenger capacity, and automobile model number, all of which is converted to an audio message and transmitted. In addition to supporting eCall, this Signaling Tester can also test mobile devices based on the Russian ERA-GLONASS standard.
This added eCall support is part of the comprehensive testing capability of this tester. An all-in-one base station simulator, it supports LTE, LTE-Advanced, W-CDMA/HSPA/HSPA Evolution/DC-HSDPA, GSM/GPRS/EGPRS, CDMA2000 1X/1xEV-DO Rev. A. and TD-SCDMA/TD-HSPA. Engineers can use this instrument to conduct maximum throughput performance tests, stress tests, and battery consumption tests of LTE terminals. It can also conduct CS Fallback, call connection reliability and stability tests at handover, communication tests at low RF power, offloading from LTE to WLAN tests, and service verification using LTE multiple PDN and SMS in a two-cell environment.
Using the GUI-based SmartStudio MX847570A software with this Signaling Tester MD8475A simplifies configuration of a mobile device test environment. Various parameters, such as the frequency and control status, are established at the GUI to run one-touch tests - including reject tests that cannot be run easily on live networks.