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Engineers can use the National Instruments Measurement Suite for Mobile WiMAX (IEEE 802.16e-2005) software suite with modular RF instrumentation for the automated testing of Mobile WiMAX devices (see the figure). With it, designers can perform Mobile WiMAX component and device testing faster than they could with traditional instruments and with better accuracy and greater flexibility, the company says.

Based on PXI Express instrumentation powered by multicore technology, the suite can perform error vector magnitude (EVM), power, and spectral measurements three to five times faster than traditional instruments, NI says. The company’s PXI WiMAX test systems also provide a low-cost, R&D grade instrumentation alternative to traditional instruments.

The National Instruments Measurement Suite for Mobile WiMAX supports channel bandwidths from 1.25 to 28 MHz and FFT sizes 128, 26, 1024, and 2048, as well as all Mobile WiMAX modulation types with both convolution coding and turbo convolution coding.

With a typical residual EVM accuracy of –46 dB at 3.5 GHz (–10 dBm), the suite can perform significantly more accurate measurements than alternative production test-grade instruments, NI says. Furthermore, the suite gives engineers enhanced flexibility with the same equipment used for testing Mobile WiMAX devices to test hardware that complies with other standards such as Fixed WiMAX, wireless local-area network (WLAN), GPS, and GSM/EDGE/WCDMA cellular standards.

The suite supports channel bandwidths from 1.25 to 28 MHz and fast Fourier transform (FFT) sizes 128, 26, 1024, and 2048, as well as all Mobile WiMAX modulation types with both convolution coding and turbo convolution coding. It also can generate or analyze signals with up to eight zones and 16 bursts. Combined with the NI PXIe-5663E RF vector signal analyzer and NI PXIe-5673 RF vector signal generator, it provides continuous frequency coverage from 85 MHz to 6.6 GHz as well. 

By including the NI Signal Analysis Toolkit for Mobile WiMAX and the NI Signal Generation Toolkit for Mobile WiMAX, the suite offers programming application programming interfaces (APIs) and virtual instrument panels for signal generation and analysis in programming environments, including the NI LabVIEW graphical system design platform. In addition to a LabVIEW API, the toolkits install with an equivalent C-style API for engineers using C, C++, .NET, or similar programming language.

The Measurement Suite for Mobile WiMAX supports multiple PXI hardware configurations to meet different application needs. A standard NI test bundle for Mobile WiMAX includes an NI PXIe-5663 6.6-GHz vector signal analyzer, NI PXEe-5673 6.6-GHz vector signal generator, NI PXIe-1075 18-slot high-bandwidth chassis, and an NI PXIe-8108 dual-core controller to provide high-performance flexibility to a variety of automated test systems. Pricing starts at $5999.