NIST’s SAMURAI Measures 5G Communications Channels Precisely

Two men and a woman stand at a table holding a robotic arm.

Engineers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a flexible, portable measurement system to support design and repeatable laboratory testing of fifth-generation (5G) wireless communications devices with unprecedented accuracy across a wide range of signal frequencies and scenarios.

The system is called SAMURAI, short for Synthetic Aperture Measurements of Uncertainty in Angle of Incidence. The system is the first to offer 5G wireless measurements with accuracy that can be traced to fundamental physical standards — a key feature because even tiny errors can produce misleading results. SAMURAI is also small enough to be transported to field tests.