Wireless communication technology companies Rohde & Schwarz (R&S) and Viavi Solutions signed an expansion of their joint wireless lab test solutions partnership. The two companies announced Wednesday that the partnership will include the roll-out of a non-terrestrial network (NTN) digital twin testbed they co-developed, covering Low-Earth Orbit (LEO), Medium-Earth Orbit (MEO) and Geosynchronous Orbit (GEO).

The testbed includes R&S’ CMX500 mobile communication network tester and Viavi’s TM500-AS2, a streamlined version of the flagship used by global network equipment manufacturers for base station testing that supports the 3GPP protocol, as well as Viavi’s TeraVM Real Data Applications (RDA) engine.

According to R&S, use cases for the test bed include: “validating end-to-end connectivity and performance; measuring quality of service over large coverage areas with different types of UEs; end user application performance while coping with distance, speed and mobility of both satellite and UE; and reliability and stability.”

“It feels great to work with experts,” said Alexander Pabst, vice president of Market Segment Wireless Communications at R&S, in the announcement. “Combining our market leading products to create solutions that address our customers’ problems in smart ways. Energy efficiency tests hit the nerve of the industry, and our smaller footprint setup meets the needs of new segments that are popping up left and right of conformance. In addition, I am extremely pleased to see our collaboration expanding into space with the most compact digital twin solution for NTN.”