WLAN Testing | NI Test Solution for WLAN-11a,11g,11n,11ac testing
This page of application note section of Test and Measurement World covers WLAN device testing as per IEEE 802.11a, 11g, 11n, 11ac standards. It mentions National Instruments (NI) hardware and software solution for WLAN device testing.
About WLAN: It is the short form of Wireless LAN. It is developed for medium to high data rate requirements for indoor applications. It supports 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequency bands.
NI test platform consisting of PXI hardware and WLAN application software supports testing of WLAN 11ac compliant chipsets as well as WLAN devices.
Both transmitter and receiver tests can be performed with the solution offered by National Instruments. Following are the features of WLAN software application.
• It supports legacy WLAN standards viz. IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n.
• It supports 4 x 4 MIMO configuration.
• IT supports signal bandwidths of 20/40/80/160 MHz.
• It supports modulation types BPSK, QPSK, 256-QAM.
NI PXI RF-VSG and RF-VSA for WLAN tests
Following table mentions RF VSG (Vector Signal Generator) and VSA (Vector Signal Analyzer) hardware models which can be integrated in PXI chassis for testing the WLAN compliant devices.
| NI Model | Description |
|---|---|
| NI PXIe-5663E (VSA) |
The model is used as VSA (Vector Signal Analyzer). It supports frequencies of upto 6.6 GHz. It supports 50 MHz inst. bandwidth. |
| NI PXIe-5673E | The model is used as Vector Signal Generator for frequencies upto 6.6 GHz. It supports RF bandwidth of greater than 100 MHz. |
As we know WLAN supports RF channel frequencies of 2.4GHz, 4.9GHz and 5GHz frequency bands. As these channel frequencies are supported by above mentioned PXI modules of National Instruments, the combined solution of hardware and software offers low cost WLAN test solution.
There are other VSG and VSA models available from National Instruments for different RF frequencies and bandwidths.
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