Taiwanese firm ALifecom unveiled a non-terrestrial network (NTN) IoT platform at this week’s Satellite 2024 exhibition in Washington DC.

This integrated platform embeds a channel emulator into the firm’s NE6000 network emulator to simulate and test NTN communications within a small form factor, user-friendly and cost-effective product.

The NE6000 has been upgraded with 3GPP release 17 standards to support NB-IoT communications over non-terrestrial networks. It combines an evolved packet core (EPC), evolved NodeB (eNB) and an integrated channel emulator that accurately replicates real-world signal propagation conditions for testing and validation of IoT NTN devices.

The emulator is versatile to serve various purposes including academic research, early R&D, functional testing and verification, and proof-of-concept demonstrations. Its flexibility extends to facilitating the verification and measurement of user terminal product designs, RF transmit and receive functions, performance metrics, and run-time behaviour post-connection to the NB-IoT NTN.

A user-friendly GUI and an integrated protocol analyser enhance usability, facilitating diagnosis and troubleshooting. The simple and user-friendly interface enables quick setup and use. Within the GUI, essential NTN parameters such as ephemeris information, feeder link RTT, service link RTT and UE band details are presented, facilitating easy access and understanding. The integrated protocol analyser provides real-time diagnosis of protocol message handshakes between user terminals and base stations.

Overall, the emulator is tailored to the needs of researchers, developers and engineers in the IoT-NTN domain.

“We are very excited to be able to support the satellite communications market with a user-friendly, small formfactor and cost-effective option,” said Max Lin, CEO of ALifecom. “With the release of the IoT-NTN platform, we hope to accelerate the development of new IoT-NTN communication devices that in turn will grow the connected world.

The NE6000 IoT-NTN network emulator (www.alifecom.com/products/detail/IoT-NTN-Platform) is available for orders and can be delivered as new hardware or as an upgrade to existing NE6000 hardware.

Established in 2009, Alifecom (www.alifecom.com) has been dedicated to algorithm development, hardware design and software implementations to develop communication testing. The company’s products support communication protocols from 5G and NTN to wifi and Bluetooth.