Method and apparatus for providing a network profile

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10673543-B2
Application number	US-201816176979-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 31, 2018
Priority date	Feb 5, 2018
Publication date	Jun 2, 2020
Grant date	Jun 2, 2020

Abstract

A method and apparatus for providing a network profile used for testing of a device under test, the method comprising the steps of reading at least one field test log file recorded during a field test of said device under test, wherein the field test log file comprises network protocol messages and/or physical layer measurement data and extracting one or more protocol messages and/or payload data from the recorded field test log file including information concerning associated cells of a cellular network to generate automatically the network profile.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method for providing a network profile used for testing of a device under test,
the method comprising the steps of:
reading at least one field test log file recorded during a field test of said device under test,
wherein the field test log file comprises network protocol messages and/or physical layer measurement data; and
extracting one or more protocol messages and/or payload data from the recorded field test log file including information concerning associated cells of a cellular network to generate automatically the network profile,
wherein the generated network profile is applied to a testing device which replicates a network configuration of the cellular network in the field.

2. The method according to claim 1 wherein if a number of cells included in the field test log file of said device under test exceeds a number of cells supported by the
testing device, the network configuration is automatically restricted to relevant cells.

3. The method according to claim 2 wherein the relevant cells comprise cells where an irregular behavior, in particular a failure, concerning the device under test has been observed during the field test.

4. The method according to claim 1 wherein the field test log file recorded during a field test of said device under test comprises a file format specific to a type of the device under test.

5. The method according to claim 1 wherein the protocol messages extracted from the recorded field test log file comprise downlink protocol messages transmitted by a base station to the device under test located in a cell of the cellular network during the field test.

6. The method according to claim 1 wherein the protocol messages extracted from the recorded field test log file comprise uplink protocol messages transmitted by the device under test located in a cell of the cellular network to a base station of said cell during the field test.

7. The method according to claim 1 wherein the protocol messages extracted from the recorded field test log file comprise broadcast messages, in particular system information block broadcast messages.

8. The method according to claim 1 wherein the information concerning a cell associated with extracted protocol messages comprises:
operator data,
a country code,
a cell identifier of the cell,
a cell configuration,
a system information block, SIB, data,
neighbor cell information data and
a cell frequency and/or a cell frequency band.

9. The method according to claim 1 wherein the physical layer measurement data of the recorded field test log file comprise radio signal parameters including signal strength, signal quality and/or signal fading.

10. The method according to claim 1 wherein a message flow of the protocol messages extracted from the recorded field test log file is analyzed to identify protocol procedures executed during the field test using graph-based algorithms and/or machine learning.

11. The method according to claim 1 wherein network protocol messages and/or physical layer measurement data forming relevant information elements of the field test log file are presented to a user by means of a user interface and/or applied to a filter to select and/or filter the relevant information elements.

12. The method according to claim 11 wherein the selected and/or filtered relevant information elements are grouped automatically according to the type of the network and the associated cells of the network.

13. A non-transitory computer readable medium for generating a network profile used for testing of a device under test,
wherein the network profile is generated by performing the steps of:
reading at least one field test log file recorded during a field test of the device under test, wherein the field test log file comprises network protocol messages and/or physical layer measurement data; and
extracting one or more protocol messages and/or payload data from the recorded field test log file including information concerning associated cells of a cellular network to generate automatically the network profile.

14. A system for mobile radio testing of a device under test comprising:
a processing unit adapted to read at least one field test log file recorded during a field test of said device under test from a memory,
wherein the field test log file comprises network protocol messages and/or physical layer measurement data and adapted to extract one or more protocol messages and/or payload data from the recorded field test log file including information concerning associated cells of a cellular network to generate automatically the network profile,
wherein the generated network profile is applied to a testing device of the system which is configured to replicate a network configuration of the cellular network in the field.

Assignees

• Rohde & Schwarz

Inventors

• Sterzbach Bernhard

Classifications

• H04B17/0085 Primary

  using test signal generators · CPC title

• H04B17/16

  Test equipment located at the transmitter · CPC title

• H04B17/17 Primary

  Detection of non-compliance or faulty performance, e.g. response deviations (H04B17/18 takes precedence) · CPC title

• H04L1/206

  for modulated signals · CPC title

• H04W16/22

  Traffic simulation tools or models · CPC title