TracEablE MEasurEMEnT of sourcE and rEcEiVEr EVM using a rEal-TiME oscilloscopE

david Humphreys and James Miall

National Physical Laboratory, Hampton Road, Teddington, Middlesex, TW11 0LW, UK Email: david.humphreys@npl.co.uk

abstract
We describe a method of traceably calibrating source or receiver Error Vector Magnitude (EVM) contributions for Wideband code division Multiple access (WcdMa) waveform using a real-Time digital oscilloscope as the reference receiver. We present the results and uncertainties for a receiver calibrated using four WcdMa sources from different manufacturers.

Source calibration Select pilot and measurement frequencies

Measurement results
RTDO Receiver algorithm Recover CW pilot phase variation with time

ultiple measurements (a repetitive waveform) M or a higher sample-rate are required to overcome the coarse amplitude resolution (8-bits). Higher resolution instruments are commercially available. he high sample-rate (651 points per symbol) T gives good resolution at the symbol point yielding much low residual EVM, but to achieve the minimum EVM results it is still necessary to interpolate the at the symbol point. The implication is that the low over-sampling rate used in other instrumentation approaches, such as a VSA, may limit their accuracy despite their higher resolution. he main disadvantages of this approach are T speed and the high volume of data generated he measurement method can determine the T modulated waveform response with uncertainties but access to validated analysis algorithms limits the applicability of this approach.

600

Frequency, MHz

800
Receiver calibration Source EVM calibration

10 measurements of source + pilot (3) waveforms

Motivation
The objective was to provide a sound manufacturer independent traceable method, with an uncertainty budget, to calibrate the modulation fidelity of communications test equipment. This is important because if the communications receiver can only decode a communications waveform, there is a severe risk of circular traceability where the source is traceable to the receiver and vice-versa.

Measurement system and impairments

The Real-Time Digital Oscilloscope (RTDO) is used to provide the link between traditional (pulse/step) calibration stimuli and communications waveforms and provide traceability to primary standards. Traditionally, EVM measurements have been made using a Vector Signal Analyzer, which can also be made independently traceable to primary standards. The RTDO architecture comprises a fast memory system and a number of high-speed A/D converters. The key impairments are: rigger errors: Small trigger timing-errors T will rotate the phase of the demodulated constellation. This must be corrected before the results are averaged. The phase correction is derived by cross-correlation with a reference waveform at the chip sample points. ow vertical resolution (8-bits): The residual L noise for a single trace at 2.5 GSamples/sec, 3.84 MChips/sec is about 1%. Post measurement averaging of the demodulated waveform reduces the noise and also provides the uncertainty of the error vector. iming error: Although the RTDO is phase-locked T to a 10 MHz reference the residual timing errors of 9 ps corresponding to phase error of 0.1 radians at 1780 MHz (see Figure 2).

Figure 3: Expected locations of correlated interference terms (red points) from the oscilloscope model for a RF frequency of 1780 MHz (blue square) with a pilot tone at 2400 MHz and a sampling rate of 2.5 Gsamples/sec

RRC lter (software) Recover RRC ltered WCDMA modulation Calculate sample-time correction Align and average individual measurements Recover WCDMA modulation at corrected time points

The calibration systems for source and receivers are shown in (Figure 4). Measurements are taken at 2.5 GSamples/s over a 1 ms epoch, to minimise truncation errors from the RRC filter and the CW reference compensates for timing (phase rotation) errors.

20-100 measurements of Measure Source + Receiver EVM

Figure 6: We measured a dedicated WCDMA receiver using four WCDMA sources of different manufacture at 900 MHz over a six month period. The components for the receiver and sources were separated using the RTDO system

introduction to WcdMa and EVM

In Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) communications systems the transmitted data is encoded using orthogonal codes so that each data symbol is represented as a sequence of n chips allowing multiple simultaneous transmissions over the same frequency channel . The Error Vector Magnitude (EVM) is defined as (Figure 1):

Noise contribution

Calculate Source EVM

Calculate reference waveform

Calculate Source EVM uncertainty

Calculate Source EVM

Calculate reference waveform

Error Vector power contributions and uncertainty budget

The Error Vector Power (EVP), which is EVM2 averaged over 2560 chips, allows the source and receiver components to be separated and, as the results are uncorrelated (linear in power) an uncertainty budget can be calculated. The dominant corrections and uncertainty contributions are noise related. The RTDO noise contribution to the uncertainty is calculated over a different frequency range and assuming that the noise is spectrally flat.
description Measured EVp (rTdo) impedance match correction rf flatness correction (EVpflat) residual random component (EVpmatch) rTdo noise contribution Measured EVp (receiver under test) Value 6.70 x 10-6 2.25 x 10-8 7.84 x 10-8 1.20 x 10 0 1.89 x 10-5
-6

acknowledgements
The funding was provided by the National Measurement Office of the UK governments Department of Business, Innovation and Skills. The authors thank Agilent, Anritsu, Aeroflex and Rhode & Schwarz for their support and R. T. Dickerson and A. Yanecek, formerly of Agilent, and L. K. J. McInnes, formerly of NPL, for their work on this project.

Calculate Source EVM uncertainty Receiver TDR measurements Receiver atness measurements

, where n is the number of chips (typically 2560); Z() is the complex modulation waveform and R() is the complex reference waveform measured at the chip time-point. The reference signal parameters are optimised to minimise the EVM value. Key points of EVM definition he reported EVM T contains both source and receiver contributions oth measured B and reference waveforms pass through a matched Root Raised Cosine filter with bandwidth 3.84 MHz and roll-off =0.22

Figure 4: Measurement system for WCDMA source and receiver calibration. Measurements are taken at 2.5 GSamples/s over a 1 ms epoch, to minimise truncation errors from the RRC filter and the CW reference compensates for timing (phase rotation) errors. The reference receiver RF Flatness is measured against a RF power meter using a CW source and the impulse response is calibrated separately using a sampling oscilloscope using a pulse or step generator.

uncertainty 1.93 x 10-7 2.25 x 10-8 7.84 x 10-8 5.95 x 10

-8

Figure 5: Analysis algorithms for receiver calibration, source calibration and demodulation and correction of the oscilloscope trace

degrees of freedom 2599 29 106 3

The reference receiver RF Flatness is measured against a RF power meter using a CW source and the impulse response is calibrated separately using a sampling oscilloscope using a pulse or step generator.

demodulate the waveform and recover the error vector results. The results are analysed in terms of Error Vector Power (EVP), which is EVM2 averaged over 2560 chips, as this allows the source and receiver components to be separated. where VRRCmod (t) is RRC filtered modulation waveform at the chip points, in the time domain, derived from the measured response. The predicted impairment of the receiver derived from impulse response and power flatness measurements

References
1. GPP Technical Specification Group Radio 3 Access Network; Base Station (BS) conformance testing (FDD) (Release 11), 3GPP TS 25.141 V11.0.0, 2011. 2. . A. Humphreys and R. T. Dickerson, D Traceable Measurement of Error Vector Magnitude (EVM) in WCDMA Signals, 2007 International Waveform Diversity & Design Conference, pp. 270-274, June 2007. 3. M. R. Harper, A. J. A. Smith, A. Basu, . A. Humphreys, Calibration of a 70 GHz D Oscilloscope, CPEM 2004 Conf. Digest, pp. 530 531, June 2004. 4. . Hudlicka, Laboratory system for a traceable M measurement of error vector magnitude, EuMW 2009 Conf. Digest, pp. 934 937, Oct 2009. 5. . Zhang, F. Zhou, L.-Q. Guo, N. Wang, R Metrology of vector modulation error: problems and solution, CPEM 2010 Conf. Digest, p. 718, June 2010. 6. . A. Humphreys, M. R. Harper, and M. Salter, D Traceable calibration of Vector Signal Analyzers, ARFTG 75th Conf., pp. 1-4, May 2010.

6.01 x 10-7 2.36 x 10-7

Waveform error model and analysis algorithm

A WCDMA signal can be considered as a carrier signal with a complex modulation term, where V(t) is the time varying RF voltage at an angular frequency and M(t) is the complex modulation term. The measured waveform can be considered as the sum of the true signal and systematic and random error signals. Under averaging, all the measured random components will tend to zero. Each measured waveform is downconverted and filtered, using a root raised-cosine filter (RRC), as shown in the source analysis algorithm (Figure 5). The main tasks are to correct for RTDO impairments,

Table 1 Measured Error Vector Power components (EVM2) and their uncertainties

Key points
The following conclusions can be drawn from this work: he EVM of a telecommunications test set T has been reproducibly determined using four different manufacturers communications sources, separating the source and receiver EVM contributions for a simple WCDMA signal Real-Time Digital-Oscilloscope, with corrections A for timebase impairments has been used as the receiver. Impulse response, impedance match, RF power flatness and timebase correction can all be traceably calibrated. xternal processing of the data allows any format E to be analysed and the analysis software can be independently tested.

Figure 1: 3GPP definition of Error Vector Magnitude (EVM). EVM is an important figure of merit in wireless communications magnitude. Figure 2: Phase variation of a CW RF carrier at 1780 MHz over 620 chips (161.5 s)

source and receiver calibration measurements

Source calibration: Three separate pilot tone frequencies 970 MHz, 1180 MHz and 1320 MHz, have been used for the measurement at 900 MHz. Ten traces, comprising the pilot tone and WCDMA signal, acquired for each pilot tone frequency. receiver calibration: The receiver under test reports the EVM value directly. 20-100 measurements were taken to determine the measurement uncertainty.

he EVM value is minimised by selecting the T frequency, absolute phase, absolute amplitude and chip clock timing. he EVM result is defined as the square root of the T ratio of the mean Error Vector Power to the mean Reference Power expressed as a percentage he measurement interval is one timeslot (2560 chips) T

rrors: Noise and re-modulation tones caused E by differences between the A/D converters. This is mitigated by choice of carrier and pilot-tone frequencies to avoid mixing products that will add errors in-band (see Figure 3).

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