Aeroflex targets WiMAX base station and mobile testing

Fresh off of its announcement of a 3G Long Term Evolution (LTE) test strategy, Aeroflex has announced its approach to mobile WiMAX, which includes both a base station and mobile station emulator, and the company hopes this is good news for developers of mobile WiMAX handhelds and base station products. Both emulators run on the same hardware platform, using different firmware and software to serve the different applications.

The Aeroflex mobile WiMAX strategy covers R&D test, protocol development test, pre-certification conformance test and manufacturing test. The WiMAX test platform includes the Protocol Conformance Tester (PCT) MINT T2230: Base Station Emulator for testing mobile stations, and the MINT T2231: Mobile Station Emulator for testing mobile WiMAX base stations.

These are the same emulation systems being used in WiMAX certification labs, so engineers can test their physical layer (PHY) and MAC layers for conformance on the same platform before sending them out to the independent laboratories. In addition, engineers can use the development mode to write their own test cases and either run them automatically, manually, or by a trigger.

Designed for PXI-based RF test systems including the Aeroflex 3000 Series RF digitizer family, Aeroflex's WiMAX test suite performs WiMAX PHY, orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) testing of power, spectrum and modulation measurements. The WiMAX software library provides analysis of OFDMA RF transmit signal characteristics for both uplink and downlink. For RF characterization, the WiMAX measurement library, combined with Aeroflex's IQCreator™ waveform creation software, provides high-speed stimulus and response capability for WiMAX OFDMA. The test sets are available with two software modes: Development Test Mode (which is shipping now) for protocol development test, and Conformance Test Mode.

Aeroflex
www.aeroflex.com

Related Articles
Practical tips on making WiMAX field measurements, Part 1