Keysight Technologies Helps MICAS Obtain the First O-RAN Certification for O-RU Equipment

Keysight Technologies' Complete Solution for O-RAN Conformance Certification Testing

Keysight Technologies, Inc. recently announced that Keysight's Open Radio Architecture (KORA) solution helped MICAS obtain the first O-RAN certification for its 5G O-RU. The O-RAN conformance certification was issued by the Zhongguancun Pan-Union Institute OTIC Certification Center. Keysight provides advanced design and verification solutions designed to accelerate innovation and create a secure and connected world.

"Thanks to Keysight's mature O-RU test solutions and professional technical support, MICAS's O-RU has obtained the world's first O-RAN certificates," said Mr. Hugh Chow, Chairman of MICAS Group and former CEO of ASTRI. "MICAS is a world-class independent design company that provides reference solutions for various signal chains, including advanced O-RU (FR1 and FR2). We use our modular software and hardware to provide flexible signal chain solutions for vertical industries."

Earlier this year, the O-RAN Alliance launched the Certificate and Badging Program in collaboration with OTIC (Open Testing and Integration Centers). The O-RAN Certificate indicates that the device or function complies with the O-RAN specification, while the O-RAN Badge confirms the interoperability or end-to-end functionality of the O-RAN solution. The O-RAN Certificate and Badge are issued by OTIC, which provides a collaborative, open and fair working environment to ensure the consistency and effectiveness of O-RAN product and solution testing.

"The O-RAN certification program is designed to provide confidence in ensuring interoperability and conformance of O-RAN products," said Dr. Zhiling Yi, co-chair of the O-RAN Alliance and O-RAN Technical Steering Committee. "Congratulations to MICAS, Keysight Technologies, and OTIC Certification Center for achieving this new milestone. We look forward to issuing more certifications to other ecosystem partners in the near future, which will help accelerate the availability of O-RAN technologies and solutions for global deployments."

Academician Zhang Ping, President of Zhongguancun Pan-Link Institute, said: "As the world's first batch and the only officially authorized OTIC certification center in mainland China, Zhongguancun Pan-Link Institute OTIC Certification Center has actively promoted industrial development since its establishment, and actively led instrument manufacturers and various equipment manufacturers to fully communicate and work together. At a time when the epidemic is raging, it is not easy to complete the world's first O-RU product certification. Conformance test certification is an important part of the wireless cloud network certification system. On this basis, interoperability test certification and end-to-end test certification will be further carried out to conduct a more comprehensive evaluation of the tested products. I hope that Zhongguancun Pan-Link Institute can attract more and more manufacturers and instrument partners to jointly promote the prosperity and development of my country's mobile communications industry."

KORA is a comprehensive O-RAN test solution that covers early pre-silicon development to system integration. This enables O-RAN vendors, mobile operators, service providers, system integrators and OTICs to verify consistency, interoperability, performance and security throughout the network lifecycle by accelerating test automation for the development, certification, labeling, integration and deployment of O-RAN.

"O-RAN certification of 5G O-RUs requires extensive testing of 31 test cases that are validated to ensure compliance with the O-RAN WG4 Open Fronthaul (OFH) Control, User, Synchronization and Management (CUSM) plane technical specifications," said Cao Peng, vice president and general manager of Keysight's Wireless Test Group. "Keysight is pleased to collaborate with MICAS and OTIC Certification Center to achieve this important milestone. We congratulate them on achieving the first O-RAN certification for their 5G O-RUs."

Leveraging Keysight's unique and deep expertise, conformance and certification test solutions, and Test as a Service (TaaS), MICAS' 5G O-RU was tested for compliance with the O-RAN Alliance Working Group (WG4) open fronthaul interface specification and full O-RAN O-RU certification. The O-RAN WG4 conformance test specification is used for control, user, synchronization, and management plane conformance certification testing.

• Keysight is the main editor and contributor to the O-RAN Alliance WG4 Conformance Test Specification for O-RU certification testing. Keysight is also the main contributor to the O-RAN Alliance Test and Integration Focus Group (TIFG) Certification Program Process Document for the O-RU certification process.

• Keysight’s O-RAN O-RU certification test suite includes O-DU emulation (Open RAN Studio), vector transceivers (M9410A VXT PXI vector transceiver), and transport network impairment solutions (Network Emulator 3). These solutions are used for O-RAN conformance certification testing of MICAS’ 5G O-RU open fronthaul control, user, synchronization, and management plane implementations. The company’s test automation software (P7000A Base Station Measurement Automation) can be used to automate the test process for O-RAN certification and test report generation. The company’s radio frequency (RF) signal analyzers and signal generators (UXA signal analyzer, VXG signal generator) can be used in place of its vector transceivers.

• Keysight’s Test-as-a-Service: Enables partners to meet the latest compliance requirements by addressing challenges such as growing test complexity, budget constraints and limited technical resources.

Keysight Technologies can provide deep technical expertise and comprehensive O-RAN test solutions. This enables the O-RAN ecosystem to accelerate the development and deployment of O-RAN compliant products, supporting open standard interfaces, Xhaul transport, O-Cloud, RAN intelligent controller (RIC) and artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML)-assisted RIC applications.

Earlier this year, Keysight participated in the O-RAN Spring PlugFest 2022, providing a wide range of test solutions that are part of the Keysight Open Radio Architecture (KORA) portfolio, enabling the O-RAN ecosystem to efficiently validate, integrate and deploy fully interoperable RAN equipment.