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WiMAX DUT Radio Conformance and Manufacturing Test Automation

wimax radio conformance manufacturing test test automation rf testing

This page covers the setup for radio conformance and manufacturing tests, as well as typical transmitter and receiver tests as defined in the WiMAX Forum Radio Conformance Specification, specifically the WiMAX Forum Mobile RCT Document v1.0.0.

The figure below depicts a typical test setup used for WiMAX DUT testing. The key building blocks of the WiMAX RCTT (Radio Conformance Test) system are:

  • PC Controller: Primarily used to manage the different instruments in the test setup according to the required test case.
  • Vector Signal Analyzer (VSA): The VSA is used to measure the PHY layer characteristics of the MS UUT, such as Frequency, Error Vector Magnitude (EVM), Spectral Flatness, and Spectral Mask.
  • Vector Signal Generator (VSG): It’s used to generate interfering signals and can provide defined noise levels. (Note: The VSA/VSG mentioned here are specifically referring to NI-RFSA and NI-RFSG respectively.)
  • BSE (Base Station Emulator or Signaling Unit): This is a signaling device capable of emulating WiMAX base stations. Furthermore, the signaling unit provides the special signaling procedures intended for RCT testing. This is NOT required for non-link-based tests.
  • Channel Emulator: This unit is used to emulate multipath and moving propagation conditions. This is only necessary in a uni-directional way (i.e., in the UUT’s receive path).
  • RF Switching Unit: Finally, the test setup is completed with an RF Switching Unit, which is commanded by the PC controller to provide the necessary RF paths to perform testing.

Other elements of the system are a clock reference that provides the necessary timing accuracy in certain test cases and a DC power supply to be used by the UUT when required.

wimax radio conformance manufacturing test automation Compliance tests as per WiMAX Forum Mobile RCT Document v1.0.0.

MS Receiver Tests

  • MS Receiver Maximum Tolerable Signal
  • MS Receiver Preambles
  • MS Receiver Cyclic Prefix
  • MS Receiver RSSI Measurements
  • MS Receiver PCINR Measurements
  • MS Receiver Pilot-based ECINR Measurement (Wave 2)
  • MS Receiver Adjacent and Non-Adjacent Channel Rejection
  • MS Receiver Maximum Input Signal
  • MS Receiver Sensitivity
  • MS Receiver PHY Support for Handoff
  • MS Receiver MIMO Processing (Wave 2)
  • MS Receive Beamforming Processing (Wave 2)

MS Transmitter Tests

  • MS Transmitter Modulation and Coding, Cyclic Prefix and Frame Duration Timing
  • MS Transmit Ranging Support
  • MS Transmitter Modulation and Coding
  • MS Transmit Power Dynamic Range
  • MS Transmit Closed and Open Loop Power Control
  • MS Transmitter Spectral Flatness
  • MS Transmitter Relative Constellation Error
  • MS Transmit Synchronization
  • MS Transmit Collaborative MIMO
  • MS Transmit Beamforming Support