Agilent now offers the industry’s first LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) 8x8 multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) signal-generation and analysis solutions, according to the company, complementing its other solutions for the LTE-A standard. The new solutions comprise Signal Studio and 89600 VSA software, as well as the Agilent X-Series vector signal generators and multi-channel signal analyzer with up to eight measurement channels.

Also, the solutions support generation and analysis of frequency-division duplex (FDD) and time division duplex (TDD) signals compliant with the 3GPP Release 10 standard. They target R&D and test engineers designing and evaluating transmitters, receivers, basebands, and components for LTE-A basestations and mobile terminals. 

Using the Signal Studio and 89600 VSA software, engineers can start testing physical-layer (PHY) implementations of LTE-A devices with greater insight and confidence while gaining a deeper understanding of the root causes of design problems, Agilent says. The multi-channel signal analyzer enables full analysis of LTE-A standards on next-generation antennas, basestations, and user equipment. Working with the 89600 VSA, it enables phase-synchronous and cross-channel measurements with up to eight RF channels in a single mainframe.

The solutions fully support 8x8 MIMO signal generation and analysis. With access to these capabilities, Agilent says, engineers can actively engage in LTE-A development work in support of broad deployment planning in coming years. The company also says that that it is extending the availability of its inter-band carrier aggregation solutions with signal-generation capability with cross-carrier scheduling.

Furthermore, Signal Studio’s new LTE-A option lets design engineers perform receiver tests with fully channel-coded waveforms, including support of Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) Format 3. The waveforms can be created for receiver bit-error-rate, block-error-rate, packet-error-rate, or frame-error-rate analysis in a range of applications, such as performance verification and functional testing of receivers during RF/baseband integration and system verification and for coding verification of baseband subsystems.

Agilent Technologies