This file contains important information about the RFmx NR, including system requirements, and installation instructions.
You can find more release information on ni.com.
RFmx NR Release Notes: Known issues, bugs fixed since the last release, and other notes about this release
RFmx NR Manuals: New features, behavior changes, and other documentation
Overview
New Features
Supported Hardware
System Requirements
Supported Operating Systems
Application Software Support
Installation Instructions
Installed Software
File Locations
Executable
Accessing the API
Accessing the Help
Finding Examples
Product Security and Critical Updates
Behavior Changes
Automating the Installation of NI Products
Using NI Software with Microsoft Windows 10
Legal Information
Overview
The RFmx NR personality is a highly optimized API for performing physical layer measurements on 5G New Radio (NR) signals. RFmx NR is completely interoperable with all RFmx APIs. It provides simple access to the most advanced optimization techniques such as multimeasurement parallelism and multi-DUT measurements. The result is extremely fast and high-quality measurements with minimal software development efforts.
New Features
RFmx NR 21.8 includes the following new features:
Support for Half Radio Frame Index to indicate location of SSB with periodicity greater than 5 msec
Support for demodulating non-3GPP compliant short frames with Sync Mode as Frame and Trigger Type as None
Support for additional phase tracking modes in ModAcc measurement
Support for n46 and n96 bands in ACP and PVT measurements and IBE result in ModAcc measurement
Support for configurable Cell ID in Downlink Test Models
Support for Release 17 specifications of 3GPP NR based on (Dec-2021)
RFmx NR 21.3 includes the following new features:
Support for all trigger types and synchronization modes in ModAcc measurement for downlink mixed numerology SSB/SCH configurations
Support for LabVIEW 2021 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Support for List Mode feature on PXIe-5840/5841/5830/5831/5832
Support for TXP measurement
Support for SSB Periodicity of 5, 10, 20, 40, 80, and 160 msec
Support for PVT measurement in downlink
Support for Custom configuration for ACP measurement
Support for Intra-band non-contiguous carrier aggregation in FR1 bands for SEM measurement
Support for reference symbols input for EVM computation in the ModAcc measurement
Support for Auto Level for ModAcc measurement
Support for Release 17 specifications of 3GPP NR based on (June 2021):
Addition of 35 MHz and 45 MHz BW support
Addition of new Bands n13, n24, n67, n85, n97, n98
Support for EVM noise compensation in FR1 frequencies for ModAcc measurement with 5840, 5841, and 5831
Support for all FFT window types and user-defined overlap (%) for Sequential FFT measurement method in ACP measurement
RFmx NR 20.7 includes the following new features:
Support for all Trigger Types and Synchronization Modes in ModAcc measurement for Downlink mixed numerology SSB/SCH configurations
ModAcc robustness improvements for Downlink mixed numerology SSB/SCH configurations
Support for user configurable grid size
Support for updates from 3GPP NR Release 16 specification December 2020
Support for 8-PSK modulation in downlink shared channel
Support for custom span in Occupied bandwidth (OBW) measurement
Support for IQ impairments compensation per subcarrier
Support for traces of IQ impairments compensation results
Support for Time Alignment Error (TAE)
Support of configuration of empty carriers in In-Band Emission (IBE) measurement
Support for Intraband Non-contiguous carrier aggregation in Uplink for the following spectral measurements:
Adjacent Channel Power (ACP)
Spectral Emission Mask (SEM) for FR1
Occupied Bandwidth (OBW)
Channel Power (CHP)
Supported Hardware
Visit NI Hardware and Operating System Compatibility to view driver, desktop operating system, and real-time operating system support for individual hardware devices.
To view information for your device:
Select your hardware model in the dropdown list on the page to view compatibility information for your device.
Type your hardware model number in the dropdown list on the web page to filter the list of available devices.
Note: Some compatibility information may only be available in the archive attached to the NI Hardware and Operating System Compatibility page. For historic driver and OS support information, refer to the readme for the relevant driver version.
System Requirements
RFmx NR has the following requirements:
Processor—1 GHz 64-bit (x64) processor
4 GB RAM *
A screen resolution of 1,024 x 768
Windows 10, with all available critical updates and service packs
* Depending on the amount of data acquired and/or processed, a larger amount of memory may be required.
Supported Operating Systems
RFmx NR 21.8.2 supports the following 64-bit operating systems:
Windows 10
Windows Server 2019
Windows Server 2016
Note RFmx NR no longer supports Windows Vista/XP/7/8.1, Windows Server 2003/2008/2012, or any 32-bit Windows operating system. RFmx NR 21.8.2 will not install or run on an unsupported OS. You cannot deploy or distribute applications that use RFmx NR 21.8.2 to an unsupported OS. Additionally, after installing RFmx NR 21.8.2, you cannot use any installers built on this computer with any version of LabVIEW, LabWindows™/CVI™, NI TestStand™, or Measurement Studio on an unsupported OS.
RFmx NR supports the following application software versions, including service packs. You should install application software, such as LabVIEW or Microsoft Visual Studio®, before installing RFmx NR. If you are not using NI application software, refer to Microsoft Visual Studio Support.
Application Software
Versions Supported by RFmx NR (64-bit only)
LabVIEW
2018 SP1 f4 patch, 2019 SP1 f3 patch, 2020 SP1, or 2021 SP1 f1 patch
Required Software
NI-RFSA 14.1 or later
NI-RFSA 17.1 or later (for initializing debug session when "using breakpoints in C/C++/.NET application" is selected)
Microsoft Visual Studio Support
If you are using the RFmx NR .NET Class Library, .NET Framework 4.0 (minimum) is required. The RFmx NR .NET Class Library can be used with Visual C# or Visual Basic .NET in any Visual Studio version that can target .NET Framework 4.0 or .NET Framework 4.5.
Installation Instructions
Download the RFmx NR installer from ni.com/downloads. NI software includes NI Package Manager to handle the installation. Refer to the NI Package Manager Manual for more information about installing, removing, and upgrading NI software using NI Package Manager.
Notes
If Windows Update is enabled, the installation process might hang if Windows Update interferes with the installation of Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Run-Time. Visit ni.com/r/exjq43 for more information and steps to resolve this issue.
Use the serial number that is included with your software to activate RFmx NR. For more information on RFmx NR activation, refer to National Instruments Software Activation.
Installed Software
is an alias for the following National Instruments file folder location:
Program Files (x86)\National Instruments\MeasurementStudioVS2010
is an alias for the following National Instruments file folder location:
Program Files (x86)\National Instruments
is an alias for the following file folder location:
Select Start » National Instruments » RFmx NR » RFmx Soft Front Panel to launch the RFmx Soft Front Panel (64-bit).
Accessing the API
RFmx NR palette VIs are available from the Functions » Measurement I/O » NI-RFmx » NR palette.
Accessing the Help
Documentation for RFmx NR is located at Start » National Instruments » RFmx NR » RFmx NR Documentation. The documentation set is composed of the following documents.
Document
Format
Description
RFmx NR Help
HTML/Windows Help
Contains primary help content for RFmx NR. This help file is an HTML version of a traditional user manual that includes the following information:
An introduction to RFmx NR
How to get started with application development
A complete reference for all RFmx NR programming functions and VIs
RFmx NR 21.8.2 Readme
HTML (this document)
Contains information about supported hardware and operating systems, new features, fixed issues, and legal notices.
Finding Examples
You can access all the installed RFmx NR examples at Start » National Instruments » RFmx NR » RFmx NR Examples.
For the most recent revisions of documentation and for newly released documentation, visit ni.com/manuals.
Product Security and Critical Updates
Visit ni.com/security to view and subscribe to receive security notifications about NI products. For information about critical updates from NI, refer to Available Critical and Security Updates for NI Software.
Behavior Changes
The following are the behavior changes in RFmx NR 21.8 from RFmx NR 21.5:
RFmx NR drops support for 32-bit user mode.
Deprecated PDSCH present in SSB Resource Block.
Deprecated Subblock Freq Definition property. Use Subblock Freq (Hz) property for configuring subblock frequency offset from the center frequency.
The following are the behavior changes in RFmx NR 21.3 from RFmx NR 20.7/20.7.1:
Updated downlink subblock integration bandwidth for ACP, CHP, and SEM measurements as per 38.104 CR0262.
Increased acquisition length for ModAcc measurement in the case of DFT-s-OFDM with SCS 60 kHz, and above with trigger types other than digital and sync mode other than Frame.
The following are the behavior changes in RFmx NR 20.7 from RFmx NR 20.6:
Obsoleted the RFmxInstr Configure Automatic SG SA Shared LO API and the RFmxInstr Automatic SG SA Shared LO property. Use RFmxInstr LO Source property with Automatic_SG_SA_Shared value instead.
Automating the Installation of NI Products
You can automate the installation of most NI products using command-line arguments to suppress some or all of the installer user interface and dialog boxes.
If the NI product you are installing uses Microsoft .NET 4.6.2, the .NET installer may run before any NI software installs and may require a reboot before the installation of NI software begins. To avoid a .NET reboot, install .NET 4.6.2 separately before you install NI software.
For more information about automating the installation of NI products, refer to Automating an Installer in the NI Package Manager manual.
Using NI Software with Microsoft Windows 10
For more information about NI support for Windows 10, refer to NI Product Compatibility for Microsoft Windows 10.
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End-User License Agreements and Third-Party Legal Notices
You can find end-user license agreements (EULAs) and third-party legal notices in the following locations after installation:
Notices are located in the \_Legal Information and directories.
EULAs are located in the \Shared\MDF\Legal\license directory.
Review \_Legal Information.txt for information on including legal information in installers built with NI products.
U.S. Government Restricted Rights
If you are an agency, department, or other entity of the United States Government ("Government"), the use, duplication, reproduction, release, modification, disclosure or transfer of the technical data included in this manual is governed by the Restricted Rights provisions under Federal Acquisition Regulation 52.227-14 for civilian agencies and Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement Section 252.227-7014 and 252.227-7015 for military agencies.
IVI Foundation Copyright Notice
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Patents
For patents covering the NI products/technology, refer to the appropriate location: Help»Patents in your software, the patents.txt file on your media, or the NI Patent Notice at ni.com/patents.