Rohde & Schwarz at MWC Barcelona 2026: Enabling connections, empowering innovations As leading solution provider for the mobile industry, Rohde & Schwarz will showcase its broad portfolio at MWC Barcelona 2026, designed to make emerging network technologies from 5G to 6G measurable, reliable and ready for the real world. Here are the highlights to be explored by event visitors. Rohde & Schwarz will be exhibiting its solutions for the mobile industry at MWC Barcelona 2026.
Rohde & Schwarz invites attendees to Mobile World Congress 2026 in Barcelona to stop by the company's booth to connect with its experts and to explore solutions for the next generation of wireless technologies. The company's portfolio will be on display under the motto Enabling Connections, Empowering Innovations at Fira Gran Via, hall 5, booth 5A80 from March 2 to 5, 2026.
The path from 5G to 6G
For a seamless evolution from 5G to 6G, Rohde & Schwarz offers future-ready test solutions for mobile devices and networks. Among the many innovative solutions, the CMX500 stands out throughout multiple demos addressing today's and tomorrow's testing challenges.
Paving the way for 6G, Rohde & Schwarz showcases carrier aggregation combining FR1 and FR3 frequency ranges with its CMX500 one-box signaling tester. The demonstration validates end-to-end device behavior across aggregated spectrum. FR3 (7.125 to 24.25 GHz) has been identified by industry and research as a sweet spot for combining wide-area coverage with high capacity. Equipped with the new, upgradeable RFU18 board for the CMX500, the tester covers up to 18 GHz, giving users enough headroom for FR3 evolution and a future-ready path for testing next-generation networks.
Another setup addresses virtual signaling testing. Based on the CMX500, Rohde & Schwarz demonstrates a new approach of shift-left testing, allowing R&D engineers to find design flaws early in their mobile radio modem chips before costly silicon fabrication. This early SDR-based validation will significantly cut time-to-market for 6G devices.
Ray tracing simulates real-world signal propagation environments, making it a valuable technique for AI receiver testing for future 6G devices. Rohde & Schwarz will showcase the CMX500 as it creates a digital twin of signal propagation within its test environment by leveraging the VIAVI ray tracing engine. This enables controlled and reproducible validation of complex scenarios with high measurement precision, facilitating site-specific optimization of radio links and reducing the need for tedious field tests.
Rohde & Schwarz also advances 5G and emerging 6G testing with its AI-based toolset AI Workplace for the CMX500, massively enhancing testing productivity. TechAssist uses natural language to control the CMX500, enabling rapid test-scenario setup and status/configuration queries, while an upgraded ScriptAssist with new interface simplifies and accelerates scripting for R&D protocol and application testing as well as instrument automation. Visitors can experience these AI-powered tools in action within various setups at MWC 2026.
Mobile XR and personal AI devices like smart glasses and wearables are key for 5G-Advanced and 6G enabled immersive 3D communications. Delivering compelling, low-latency experiences will require rigorous, realistic testing. Rohde & Schwarz will demonstrate an end-to-end testbed centered around the CMX500, addressing AI on RAN and XR testing challenges with its ability to emulate 4G, 5G and Wi-Fi networks, applying both RF and IP impairments to reproduce real-world conditions such as interference and congestion.
6G ISAC (Integrated Sensing and Communication), which leverages mobile networks for object detection, is rapidly gaining traction. Rohde & Schwarz will demonstrate new capabilities of its R&S AREG800A , including the emulation of micro-Doppler signatures - in addition to distance, speed and RCS - to support object classification, such as drones.
For testing base stations and network infrastructure, Rohde & Schwarz showcases the PVT360A . It meets the requirements for testing FR1/FR2, small cells and O-RU in a single box. For the verification of frequency converting antennas used in SATCOM, NTN or 5G and 6G applications, visitors can learn about CATR-based over-the-air test chambers, enabling fast OTA-testing of phased antenna arrays.
With the first off-the-shelf commercial mobile devices now available for 5G broadcast, Rohde & Schwarz lets visitors explore seamless rich data distribution transmission to mobile devices, innovative applications like venue casting, emergency alerts and advanced solutions for terrestrial positioning, navigation and timing.
From ground to orbit with NTN
As terrestrial and satellite-based networks converge, it becomes increasingly complex to simulate real-word conditions while meeting 3GPP requirements, for instance when it comes to handovers within orbits, between orbits or from space to ground. As NTN technology matures alongside 5G and towards 6G, overcoming significant technical hurdles is key to realizing NTN's potential.
Rohde & Schwarz has upgraded its CMX500 one-box signaling tester, supporting NR-NTN, NB-NTN and Direct-to-Cell (D2C/DTC) technologies in a single platform. The tester creates a digital twin of the sky, simulating orbits, bands and impairments like Doppler shifts and fading. Combined with smart features like the Constellation Insights Tool it allows engineers to visualize satellite constellations, analyze coverage gaps and observe trajectories.
Rohde & Schwarz also supports NTN conformance and carrier acceptance testing, offering the highest number of validated test cases for NR-NTN according to 3GPP Rel.17. In cooperation with Samsung, validations were conducted across all three test domains: RF, RRM and PCT. At MWC 2026 visitors wil
