WLAN IEEE 802.11ad RF PHY Layer Testing

This tutorial section covers the RF PHY layer testing as per the IEEE 802.11ad standard. It focuses on 11ad transmitter and receiver radio conformance tests, essential for test and measurements related to 802.11ad products.

Generic RF Measurement Test Requirements

Table 1 outlines generic RF measurement test requirements, independent of the specific 802.11ad physical layer implementation. These tests include transmit mask, RF center frequency tolerance, symbol clock tolerance, RF center frequency leakage, and transmit ramp up/down time.

Table 1: Generic RF Measurement Test Requirements

Physical Layer 11ad Test Requirements

The following section details physical layer 11ad test requirements, including transmitter EVM, receiver sensitivity, and transmit spectrum flatness. See the EVM basics and PHY measurements documentation for more detailed information. As mentioned in the 802.11ad tutorial, there are three physical layer modes in 802.11ad: Control, Single Carrier, and OFDM. The modulation coding rates (MCS) are 0 for Control, 1 to 24 for Single Carrier (including low power SC), and 25 to 31 for OFDM PHY.

Table 2 lists EVM and receiver sensitivity requirements for various MCS values.

Table 2: EVM and Receiver Sensitivity Requirements by MCS

OFDM Transmit Spectrum Flatness

The requirements for different subcarriers are as follows:

• For Subcarriers from -146 to -2 and from +2 to +146: tolerance allowed is +/- 2dB
• For Subcarriers from -177 to -147 and from +147 to +177: tolerance allowed is +2/-4 dB

RF PHY Layer Conformance Testing Solutions

The following test and measurement products are ideal for conformance testing of 802.11ad products. Keysight Technologies (formerly Agilent) and R&S offer instruments that are very useful for 11ad device testing and measurements. These RF and baseband instruments are ideal for 11ad RF/PHY conformance testing.

Table 3: RF PHY Layer Conformance Testing Instruments