Modular platform adapts to wireless standards

Aeroflex's modular RF platform achieves greater flexibility and speed than equivalent conventional rack-based test systems by leveraging the inherent benefits of PXI.

As today's cellular phones and PDAs become capable of connection into wireless local area networks (WLAN), Aeroflex is keeping pace by releasing a new measurement suite for WLAN as well as expanding features of the existing GSM/Edge measurement suite.

These measurement suites for use with Aeroflex's PXI modular RF platform will help speed up testing during the development and manufacture of WLAN and cellular devices using a single Aeroflex test system.

Aeroflex's modular RF platform achieves greater flexibility and speed than equivalent conventional rack-based test systems by leveraging the inherent benefits of PXI, an industry open standard for lower cost, higher speed instrumentation.

PXI-based test systems for mobile handset manufacturing combined with easy-to-implement and speed-optimised measurement suites have accelerated test times by as much as five times.

"Using PXI technology has been key to our rapid development of new products", said Tim Carey, Product Manager, Modular Instruments, Aeroflex.

"Frequent new product introductions from our PXI 3000 series platform will be customary for the foreseeable future as part of our planned development for products serving cellular and wireless access standards".

The Aeroflex PXI measurement suites for WLAN and GSM/Edge will test all modulation formats of 802.11a, b and g WLAN or GSM/Edge devices.

The WLAN and GSM/Edge measurement suites offer the ability to make a variety of spectrum, modulation and power measurements with a single PXI test system, saving valuable time and test resources.

Both suites are options to the Aeroflex 3030 PXI RF digitiser family.

The measurement suites complement the company's continually growing PXI test capabilities for WLAN and GSM/Edge as well as other popular 2G and 3G standards.

In the last three months, Aeroflex has introduced two new PXI RF signal generators, two new RF digitisers and three new measurement suites targeted at digital cellular and wireless access standards.

The Aeroflex WLAN Measurement Suite was shown for the first time at Productronica, Germany and the 3G World Congress, Hong Kong.

This software suite performs analysis of 802.11 a, b, g and PHY (physical layer) RF transmission parameters.

The WLAN Measurement Suite expands the capability of the Aeroflex 3030 PXI RF digitiser to perform OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing Access) also known as multi-user OFDM, and DSSS (Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum) power, spectrum and modulation measurements in accordance with 802.11 standards.

The WLAN Measurement Suite performs analysis of 802.11 RF transmission parameters by using digital IQ data derived from a RF digitiser.

In conjunction with the Aeroflex 3030 PXI RF digitiser, the WLAN Measurement Suite allows precision characterisation and alignment of RF transmitters.

The Aeroflex GSM/Edge Measurement Suite is now extended to include receiver as well as transmitter testing.

The latest features of GSM/Edge software add receiver reference sensitivity (BER, class II RBER and FER) measurements using loopback methods as defined in ETSI standards.

These features are additional to the analysis of GSM/Edge transmission signal characteristics including average RF power, burst profile, modulation quality (phase error or error vector magnitude), frequency error and spectrum due to modulation and switching.

The Aeroflex WLAN Measurement Suite for PXI will be available in late December 2005.

The Aeroflex GSM/Edge Measurement Suite will be available in late November 2005.

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