Anite joins 5G Innovation Centre at the University of Surrey

Fleet, Hampshire, UK – 12 August, 2015 – Anite, a global leader in wireless equipment testing technology, today announced that it has joined the 5G Innovation Centre at the University of Surrey (“5GIC”), the largest UK academic research centre dedicated to the development of the next generation of mobile and wireless communications.

Anite’s leading channel emulation and protocol testing expertise will contribute to the development of next-generation 5G technology. Many candidate technologies are currently being considered for future 5G standards and a common theme across these proposals is the increasingly complex interactions between wireless devices. Wireless researchers find it essential to accurately simulate the protocol and radio conditions of potential 5G network environments in order to evaluate the technology and optimise the performance of next-generation networks and devices.

At the heart of the 5GIC, which is backed by both the UK government and leading global industry players, is a state-of-the-art testbed for trialling emerging 5G ideas, proving concepts, validating standards and vendor inter-operability testing.

Several other universities and international research projects including METIS and Virtuoso have called upon Anite’s wireless expertise and test solutions to progress their research into 5G. Earlier this year, Anite announced that the Anite-led task group within the METIS project finalised the world’s first 5G radio channel models, which will help to accelerate the development of 5G radio access technologies and future mobile industry standards. The Virtuoso project benefits from Anite’s Virtual Drive Testing Modelling Tool, which uses Anite’s Propsim Channel Emulator and the Anite 9000 network simulator to “virtually” recreate the field environment in the laboratory.

Paul Beaver, Products Director at Anite’s Device & Infrastructure business says, “We are really excited to be joining 5GIC, adding Anite’s valuable expertise to help accelerate key research initiatives. 5G has the potential to transform wireless communications but it will be essential to ensure that key technology attributes are appropriately designed and tested, and this is where Anite can play an important role.”

Professor Rahim Tafazolli, Head of the 5G Innovation Centre commented, “Anite’s contribution to our 5G research programme will enable the development and testing of future technologies in a real environment and in an end to end manner. Through 5GIC’s collaboration with leading industry partners our 5G testbed will inform a new communications network that will revolutionise the way technologies are developed in the future.”

¹ METIS (Mobile and wireless communications Enablers for 2020 Information Society) is co-funded by the European Commission as an Integrated Project under the Seventh Framework Programme for research and development (FP7).