5G Broadcast testbed Vienna: Mobile measurements have been started
Dr. Johann Mika, ORS project manager of the 5G broadcast testbed Vienna (l), with Stefan Babel, ORS technician (r), who is carrying out field measurements in front of St. Stephen's Cathedral in the heart of Vienna. Photo: ORS
Since November 2019, the ORS has been working intensively to built-up the 5G Broadcast Testbed Vienna which is based on the new 5G Broadcast transmission standard and considered as an important further development of digital terrestrial television. In mid-July, the first mobile measurements of the trial have started in Vienna with a novel measurement vehicle developed by the ORS. The goal of the trial is to investigate possible transmission capacities under various everyday situations.
Mobile transmission capacity measurements using a customized bicycle trailer
The 5G Broadcast Testbed Vienna project started in November 2019 with the setup of the infrastructure. Two of the existing ORS transmitter stations in Vienna, Wien Kahlenberg and Wien Liesing were expanded by a 5G broadcast transmitter each. The infrastructure was intensively tested within the first quarter of 2020 followed by the start of stationary measurements, carried-out to investigate the maximum possible transmission capacities under various stationary reception conditions. To ensure that the new technology also works at slow speeds (i.e. for mobile users in city traffic), the existing measurement fleet was completed by a new mobile bicycle trailer, developed and built-up by ORS technicians.
The new mobile bicycle trailer and the bigger measurement bus are used during summer by Stefan Babel and Martin Kubicek, two ORS transmission and measurement technicians. Both are traveling across Vienna with the task to gather information about reception conditions at different walking and travelling speeds. The results are then compared with the simulated results and in a next step optimal parameters for a smooth reception of 5G broadcast can be determined.
The heavy-duty bicycle trailer was developed as an all-purpose measurement system for low speeds and contains at present two different measuring systems and an integrated independent power supply. Due to its weight it is necessary to pull the bicycle trailer by an e-bike.
First test ride in Vienna already completed
After first setup tests in June, the first major measurement ride with the mobile bicycle trailer was successfully carried out in Vienna in mid-July. In focus: numerous inner-city squares and visitor hotspots like the St. Charles Church, the State Opera and the Vienna Prater where the reception of the 5G broadcast signal were measured.
"For mobile measurements it is essential that we can do measurements at different reception conditions of future 5G Broadcast users in the inner-city area. This was the reason why we chose heavily frequented locations for the first measurement ride with our heavy-duty bicycle trailer. This went very well and further measurement rides will now be carried out over summer," says Dr. Johann Mika, project manager of the 5G Broadcast testbed Vienna.
Results will be presented in autumn
The start of the mobile measurements represents an important milestone in the first phase of the 5G Broadcast testbed Vienna. Until Q2 2021, the ORS will compare the new mobile transmission technology FeMBMS (further evolved multimedia broadcast multicast service) with the current DVB-T2 transmission standard for terrestrial TV. With its mobile measurements, the ORS is taking another step towards the future of television in Austria. It is planned to present first results of the trial to the public at the Austrian Media Days (September 23/24) in Vienna.