Evaulation_Engineering_August_2020 - 20

COMMUNICATIONS TEST

Digilent Genesys ZU development platform.

low-cost USB RF portfolio," Haj-Omar
said. "Instruments such as the RSA306B,
RSA500, and RSA600 provide ultraportable
instrumentation for RF measurements.
These instruments can be powered by USB,
battery, or AC. The C-V2X has a bandwidth
of 20 MHz today, with a possibility of 40
MHz in the future. All USB RF instruments
provided by Tektronix have a bandwidth
of 40 MHz, making them ideal for C-V2X
measurements."
The distributor Saelig offers several
products suitable for testing 5G, Wi-Fi
6, and other advanced communications
technologies. CEO Alan Lowne reported
that ThinkRF real-time spectrum analyzers are geared for 5G, and Saelig offers
one 8-GHz model for less than $4,000.
"Our SIGLENT and Rigol spectrum analyzers...go to 7.5 GHz, so would be useful
for Wi-Fi 6 work." He added that Saelig
offers Triarchy USB modules which generate or analyze signals up to 8 GHz, and
Windfreak modules that can generate
signals up to 24 GHz.
A variety of special-purpose test sets,
general-purpose instruments, and even
thermal test platforms are now available,
such as TotalTemp's Model SD288 for
fast, efficient testing of large or multiple
RF modules, according to John Booher,
chief technology officer. "We have new
sizes of thermal platforms that by using
the capability of conduction and liquid
nitrogen (or advanced refrigeration systems) can quickly test emerging hardware to quickly automate and validate
new hardware," he said.

EVALUATION ENGINEERING AUGUST 2020

EE-Evaluation Engineering's August
special report on signal and spectrum
analyzers and our July special report on
RF/microwave test provide additional
information on products and techniques
that can be applied to 5G, Wi-Fi 6, V2X,
and other next-generation communications standards.
Indeed, several contributors to our RF/
microwave test special report have elaborated on their solutions for advanced communications technologies.
For example, Rick Gentile, product manager, RF and signal processing systems,
MathWorks, said the company launched
its 5G Toolbox not long after the 5G NR
standard was approved. "This was possible by working closely with companies
directly tied to the standards process," he
said. "We have multiple standards-based
products for wireless beyond 5G, including
LTE, WLAN, and Bluetooth. These products are focused on standards compliance
and interoperability."
Gentile continued, "Our toolboxes for
wireless applications are all written in
MATLAB. Anyone that has the toolboxes
also has the code for all of the algorithms
and building blocks.
Gentile said the company's R2020a release, which became available in March, includes highlights such as Interactive Apps
that help with common tasks, including
the Wireless Waveform Generator App to
connect 5G waveforms with commerciallyavailable test equipment; support for 5G
NR standards for modeling and simulation;
RF propagation analysis and visualization in dense urban scenarios; modeling
for large installation platforms and radar
cross section analysis; multifunction RF
modeling through tracking and resource
scheduling; and automotive radar design
for high-bandwidth systems.
According to Manohar Raju, senior
product specialist at Ansys, the company's
tools serve in various verticals, including
but not limited to 5G, Wi-Fi 6, automotive
radar, and IoT. "Engineers use Ansys HFSS
to model diversity and MIMO antennas
appropriate for spatial beamforming in
5G and Wi-Fi 6 applications," he said. "5G
networks utilizing mmWaves rely on the
performance of the user equipment (UE)
and microcell (or base station) antennas

and propagation channel. Ansys HFSS
is used to virtually prototype and simulate human device interaction with UEs.
Ansys Icepak is combined with HFSS to
predict the thermal performance of the
UEs. Our tools reduce the cost of regulatory and compliance testing."
Raju further said that 5G can extend
the scope of IoT to enable smart cities.
"With virtual-city models in HFSS, engineers can simulate large dynamic wireless
scenes. The solutions give insights into a
network's physical channel performance
and base station siting before field deployment-thus reducing the cost and time
of producing physical prototypes and
OTAs. These solutions (with CSI extraction techniques) exploit the potential of
multiuser massive MIMO beamforming
and adaptive beamforming approaches
to design effective end-to-end 5G wireless
networks and antenna systems. Ansys
tools simulate RFICs and the standalone
and installed performance of radar, and
engineers can virtually recreate dynamic
ADAS scenarios involving V2V and V2X
communications in Ansys HFSS SBR+.
Keysight Technologies spokespersons
said Keysight's 5G design and test solutions address the complete 5G mobile
ecosystem. "Our solutions are used across
the workflow for each component-R&D,
design validation, manufacturing, deployment, and monitoring, from the physical
layer to the application layer," they said.
Keysight's chipset and device solutions
cover the following applications: waveform R&D, protocol R&D, RF automation, functional and performance testing,
protocol conformance testing, RF/RRM
conformance testing, carrier acceptance
testing, and manufacturing test.
They also discussed automotive applications. "Keysight is deeply involved
in test and development solutions supporting vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technologies that enable direct, real-time, and
safe communication between vehicles,
road users, and roadside infrastructure,"
they said. "These technologies pave the
way for the development of autonomous
driving by enabling advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) to work with
V2X systems, eventually enabling selfdriving cars."

Evaulation_Engineering_August_2020

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