Development and Experimental Validation of a 5G-NR Simulator Supporting Carrier Aggregation

摘要

This paper provides a comprehensive numerical and experimental analysis of 5G end-to-end systems resorting to the use of key features provided by MATLAB's 5G toolbox. In this work, a 5G carrier fully complying with 3GPP requirements is generated and AWGN noise is added at baseband reception to study the impact of the different modulation formats on the symbol error rate (SER) and error vector magnitude (EVM). The developed simulator based on MATLAB's 5G toolbox was then modified to incorporate the functionality of carrier aggregation. Finally, the signal generated with the simulator was loaded into an Arbitrary Waveform Generator (AWG) and propagated to an oscilloscope, first using a back-to-back electrical configuration and then using an optical link. The experimental 5G signal was received and processed by the developed MATLAB simulator, and then validated by direct comparison against theoretical and simulation results. The obtained results show that the developed end-to-end simulator is a powerful tool for the numerical and experimental analysis of high-capacity 5G transmission systems, enabling the embedded monitoring of SER and EVM.