Tools for the Generation and Analysis of Fixed and Mobile WiMAX Signals

NI Measurement Suite for Fixed WiMAX, NI Measurement Suite for Mobile WiMAX NEW!
Included Products Fixed WiMAX NI Signal Generation Toolkit for Fixed WiMAX NI Signal Analysis Toolkit for Fixed WiMAX Mobile WiMAX NI Signal Generation Toolkit for Mobile WiMAX NI Signal Analysis Toolkit for Mobile WiMAX Fixed WiMAX Features Supported signal characteristics Customizable frame, subframe, burst, and gap spacing Channel bandwidth: 1.25 to 28 MHz Modulation schemes: BPSK, QPSK, 16-QAM, and 64-QAM Fixed WiMAX generation signal types Time-division duplex (TDD): downlink and uplink Frequency-division duplex downlink (FDD-DL) Frequency-division duplex uplink (FDD-UL) Mobile WiMAX Features Supported signal characteristics Customizable frame, zone, and burst configurations Channel bandwidth: 1.25 to 28 MHz Modulation schemes: BPSK, QPSK, 16-QAM, and 64-QAM Fixed and Mobile WiMAX Measurements Time domain Error vector magnitude (EVM) Burst, preamble, and data power Spectral flatness Frequency offset Sample clock offset I/Q offset, gain imbalance Quadrature skew Frequency domain Spectrum mask margin Occupied bandwidth Adjacent channel power (Mobile WiMAX only) Supported Hardware RF vector signal generators NI PXIe-5673 (85 MHz to 6.6 GHz) NI PXIe-5673E (85 MHz to 6.6 GHz) RF vector signal analyzers NI PXIe-5663 (10 MHz to 6.6 GHz) NI PXIe-5663E (10 MHz to 6.6 GHz) Operating Systems Windows 7/Vista/XP Programming APIs LabVIEW LabWindows/CVI Visual C++ /.NET

Overview
NI measurement suites for Fixed and Mobile WiMAX provide generation and analysis functions for Fixed and Mobile WiMAX (IEEE 802.16-2004 and IEEE 802.16e-2005) signals. The suites include the signal analysis toolkits for Fixed and Mobile WiMAX that can be used with RF vector signal analyzers, and the signal generation toolkits for Fixed and Mobile WiMAX can be used with RF vector signal generators. Combined with high-performance multicore processors, PXI Express WiMAX measurement systems based on these toolkits can complete automated measurements three to five times faster than traditional box instruments.
Figure 1. WiMAX Test System with NI PXIe-5663 Vector Signal Analyzer and NI PXIe-5673 Vector Signal Generator

Tools for the Generation and Analysis of Fixed and Mobile WiMAX Signals
When using the WiMAX toolkits with high-performance PXI RF vector signal generators and analyzers, you can perform fast and accurate device- or chiplevel measurements. For example, the NI PXIe-5663 vector signal analyzer and NI PXIe-5673 vector signal generator provide typical loopback residual EVM measurements as low as -49 dB for Mobile WiMAX signals.
Figure 2. You can automate WiMAX measurements using the LabVIEW programming API.

Flexible WiMAX Measurements

The NI measurement suites for Fixed and Mobile WiMAX offer programming APIs for signal generation and analysis in programming environments such as NI LabVIEW and LabWindows/CVI as well as ANSI C. While signal generation and measurements are compliant with the IEEE 802.16-2004 (also referred to as IEEE 802.16d) and IEEE 802.16e-2005 specifications, you can use the software-based approach to customize measurements as well. In addition, you can configure the same measurement hardware with a variety of software packages to perform measurements on GSM/EDGE/WCDMA, WLAN, Bluetooth, GPS, and many other devices.

Using the programming API, you can configure a wide variety of settings such as modulation scheme, burst duration, gap spacing, and carrier frequency. In addition, you can configure each of these settings with either a Property Node or function from the LabVIEW or LabWindows/CVI palette. Figure 3 shows how you can use the programming API to obtain and set measurement characteristics.

Custom Analysis of WiMAX Signals

Because the NI signal analysis toolkits for Fixed and Mobile WiMAX offer access to both the raw I/Q data and the measurement result, you can use the toolkit with RF vector signal analyzers, high-speed digitizers, and digital waveform analyzers. Table 1 provides a list of some of the supported measurements.
Preamble Measurement/Analysis Preamble detection Sequence identification Channel estimation Preamble power Demodulation and Power Measurements Error vector magnitude (EVM) Quadrature skew I/Q gain imbalance Origin offset Spectral flatness Carrier frequency offset Sample clock offset Burst power and frame power Spectrum Measurements Standard spectral emissions mask Spectral mask margin Occupied bandwidth Adjacent channel power (Mobile WiMAX only) Gated spectral measurements (Mobile WiMAX only)

Figure 3. Programming WiMAX Signal Generation with the LabVIEW API

Note from Figure 3 that settings such as nominal bandwidth, cyclic prefix, number of subframes, and number of averages are built into the Fixed or Mobile WiMAX analysis instrument handle. You also can set each of these signal characteristics with a LabVIEW Property Node. With the C-style API, you can configure automated measurements in textbased programming languages as well. You can use the C-style interface in LabWindows/CVI and Visual C++ directly. Figure 4 shows a screenshot of an EVM measurement example programmed in LabWindows/CVI.

Table 1. Supported Fixed and Mobile WiMAX Analysis Measurements

Programming API for Automated WiMAX Measurements

You can perform each measurement in an automated manner using the programming API or interactively with the LabVIEW demo panel. All NI toolkits for Fixed and Mobile WiMAX install with both a demo panel and a LabVIEW and LabWindows/CVI programming API. You can use the programming API to configure RF signal generators and analyzers for automated signal generation and analysis. For simplicity, the toolkit is shipped with various example programs to help you get started. Figure 2 shows screenshots of the generation and analysis palettes.
Figure 4. Fixed WiMAX Measurement Example in LabWindows/CVI

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Tools for the Generation and Analysis of Fixed and Mobile WiMAX Signals
In addition to LabWindows/CVI, you can automate WiMAX measurements in other C-based programming environments such as Visual C# or .NET. Observe that the Fixed WiMAX demo panel illustrates traces such as constellation, EVM versus subcarrier, and power versus time. You can configure this example program to measure multiple subframes and bursts. In addition, you can input various bandwidths, modulation schemes, gap durations, and numbers of symbols to measure.

WiMAX Analysis Demo Panels

Both the NI Signal Analysis Toolkit for Fixed WiMAX and the NI Signal Analysis Toolkit for Mobile WiMAX are shipped with fully functional demo panels.

Fixed WiMAX
The traces reported include power versus time, spectral mask, constellation plot, and EVM versus subcarrier. While you can return each of these traces individually through the programming API, you also can visualize them interactively with the Fixed WiMAX demo panel, shown in figures 5 and 6.

Mobile WiMAX
The NI Signal Analysis Toolkit for Mobile WiMAX offers an interactive approach to measure and visualize signal characteristics. The traces reported include power versus time, spectral mask, constellation plot, EVM versus subcarrier, EVM versus symbol, and spectral flatness. In addition, reported measurements include EVM, spectral mask margin, and power.

Figure 5. Spectrum Mask Measurement with the Fixed WiMAX Demo Panel for LabVIEW

With the Fixed WiMAX demo panel, you can perform both spectrum mask and I/Q measurements. Figure 5 shows that you can perform EVM, power, and spectral flatness measurements concurrently.
Figure 7. This Mobile WiMAX analysis demo panel provides a variety of measurement traces.

Figure 8. The Mobile WiMAX spectral mask enables both gated and wideband spectral mask measurements. Figure 6. EVM and Power Measurements with the Fixed WiMAX Demo Panel for LabVIEW

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Tools for the Generation and Analysis of Fixed and Mobile WiMAX Signals
With the Mobile WiMAX analysis soft front panel, you can perform highly customized spectral mask margin measurements. You can use the toolkit to not only enter custom mask limits but also customize signal settings such as the fast Fourier transform (FFT) window type and spectrum span.

WiMAX Generation Demo Panels

With the NI signal generation toolkits for Fixed and Mobile WiMAX, you can configure WiMAX signal generation both programmatically through the LabVIEW and C-style API and with an interactive demo panel.

Fixed WiMAX
With the NI Signal Generation Toolkit for Fixed WiMAX, you can configure custom frames and bursts ranging from less than 1 ms in duration to 20 ms in duration. Also, additional burst settings such as preamble type, modulation scheme, PN sequence order, and even payload are completely user-configurable. In Figure 9, observe a screenshot of the Fixed WiMAX LabVIEW demo panel.
Figure 10. This zone map displays offset and duration for each burst.

Signal Generation Impairments

In addition to generating customized frame structures, you can use both the NI signal analysis toolkits for Fixed and Mobile WiMAX to specify custom physical layer impairments.
Quadrature Impairments Quadrature skew DC offset I/Q gain imbalance Other Impairments Carrier frequency offset Symbol clock offset Additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN)

Table 2. With the NI Signal Generation Toolkit for Fixed WiMAX, you can customize signal impairments.

Signal impairments can be set both programmatically through a property node or interactively with either of the WiMAX generation demo panels. Using these
Figure 9. Configuring Multiframe Bursts with the NI Signal Generation Toolkit for Fixed WiMAX

impairments, you can configure a vector signal generator to output signals that model the characteristics of a nonideal Fixed WiMAX transmitter. Figure 11 shows a 64-QAM burst that has been simulated using the AWGN impairment. In this figure, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the waveform has been programmatically reduced to 31 dB.

Figure 9 shows how you can use the Fixed WiMAX demo panel to choose a configurable modulation scheme and number of symbols for each burst. In addition, you can select the nominal bandwidth and cyclic prefix for the entire frame.

Mobile WiMAX
With the NI Signal Generation Toolkit for Mobile WiMAX, you can configure custom frames, bursts, and zones. For each zone, you can add multiple bursts with custom settings such as modulation/coding scheme, number of symbols, symbol offset, number of channels, number of assigned slots, and boosting factor. In addition, the Mobile WiMAX soft front panel provides a zone map visualization tool to aid in the creation of custom bursts. Note that you can save each signal configuration to disk and reload it for ease of use.

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Tools for the Generation and Analysis of Fixed and Mobile WiMAX Signals
Ordering Information
Software NI Measurement Suites for Fixed and Mobile WiMAX ................781358-01 NI Measurement Suite for Fixed WiMAX .................................780976-03 NI Signal Generation Toolkit for Fixed WiMAX ....................780974-03 NI Signal Analysis Toolkit for Fixed WiMAX ........................780975-03 NI Measurement Suite for Mobile WiMAX ..............................781237-03 NI Signal Generation Toolkit for Mobile WiMAX .................781235-03 NI Signal Analysis Toolkit for Mobile WiMAX .....................781236-03 Hardware NI PXIe-5663E 6.6 GHz vector signal analyzer with 256 MB RAM .....................................................................781260-02 NI PXIe-5673E 6.6 GHz vector signal generator with 512 MB RAM .....................................................................781263-02

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Figure 11. Constellation of Simulated WiMAX Burst with SNR = 31 dB

Preliminary Information
National Instruments reserves the right to change any and all features and specifications described in this document.

Measurement Accuracy
With the high-performance RF front end of the NI PXIe-5663E 6.6 GHz RF vector signal analyzer and the NI PXIe-5673E 6.6 GHz RF vector signal generator, you can accurately characterize the RF performance of WiMAX devices. For EVM measurements, Table 6 shows the residual EVM for various power levels and frequency bands. All measurements were made with the NI PXIe-5663E and NI PXIe-5673E. Table 3 illustrates the typical performance of EVM measurements performed with 10 averages configured, the 64-QAM-3/4 modulation schemes, and a nominal bandwidth of 10 MHz.
RF Power Level -10 dBm -20 dBm -30 dBm EVM at 2.5 GHz -47 dB -46 dB -45 dB EVM at 3.5 GHz -45 dB -44 dB -44 dB EVM at 5.8 GHz -41 dB -41 dB -40 dB

Table 3. Typical Residual EVM Floor for the NI Signal Analysis Toolkit for Fixed WiMAX
RF Power Level -10 dBm -20 dBm -30 dBm EVM at 2.5 GHz -48 dB -49 dB -46 dB EVM at 3.5 GHz -45 dB -45 dB -43 dB EVM at 5.8 GHz -43 dB -43 dB -42 dB

Table 4. Typical Residual EVM Floor for the NI Signal Analysis Toolkit for Mobile WiMAX Uplink Signal

As Table 4 shows, you can use instruments such as the NI PXIe-5663E 6.6 GHz RF vector signal analyzer and the NI PXIe-5673E RF vector signal generator with the NI Measurement Suite for Fixed WiMAX to perform accurate RF characterization.

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2009 National Instruments. All rights reserved. CVI, LabVIEW, National Instruments, National Instruments Alliance Partner, NI, and ni.com are trademarks of National Instruments. The mark LabWindows is used under a license from Microsoft Corporation. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries. Other product and company names listed are trademarks or trade names of their respective companies. A National Instruments Alliance Partner is a business entity independent from National Instruments and has no agency, partnership, or joint-venture relationship with National Instruments. 0553 This document describes preliminary details for the NI measurement suites for Fixed and Mobile WiMAX Generation and Fixed WiMAX Analysis toolkits. National Instruments reserves the right to change features and specifications without notice.