DoCoMo 28-GHz 5G trial connects car moving at 305 km/h

DoCoMo 5G
Image credit: NTT DoCoMo

NTT DoCoMo announced that it has successfully completed a trial in which it managed to transmit data over the 28-GHz mmWave band between a 5G base station and a 5G mobile terminal mounted on a car moving at 305 km/h.

The trial – conducted with NEC and NTT – achieved what DoCoMo claims may be the world’s first successful 1.1 Gbps downlink to a 5G mobile station moving at 293 km/h and a fast handover during communication between 5G base stations and a 5G mobile station moving at 290 km/h.

The trial, conducted at the Japan Automobile Research Institute (JARI) on April 8, created an ultra-high-mobility test environment using a car traveling at speeds similar to those of high-speed railways.

Radio waves in the 28 GHz high-frequency band propagate very straight and make long-range transmission difficult due to large propagation loss. To overcome these challenges, the 5G base station and 5G mobile station provided by NEC were both equipped for beamforming, which concentrated radio power in a specific direction, and beam tracking, which switched the direction of the beams to follow the 5G mobile station as it moved at high speed.

DoCoMo says the trial confirmed the ability to use 28-GHz 5G across a wide area by achieving fast handover to maintain a connection while switching between base stations.

DoCoMo says it also succeeded in a wireless live transmission of 4K high-definition, 120-frames-per-second high-frame-rate video from a car moving at 200 km/h utilizing NTT’s real-time 4K high-frame-rate HEVC codec.

Like so.

Other companies involved in the trials included DoCoMo 5G Open Partner Program participants, Sony Business Solutions Corporation (which provided the 4K camera), and DoCoMo Team Dandelion Racing manager Dandelion Limited (which provided the car).

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