MWC 2016: Test bed takes on challenging WiFi applications

25th February 2016

Mick Elliott

0 0

Announced at Mobile World Congress was an agreement for Spirent Communications to deliver a complete Spirent Landslide Wi-Fi and octoScope system supporting real access points and real client devices in the octoBox testbed. The octoBox testbed supports coexistence of multiple wireless technologies such as LTE and 802.11ac Wave-2 including MU-MIMO while providing controllable a real-life RF environment.

The octoBox testbed automates common wireless tests such as throughput vs. range, roaming and coexistence in a completely isolated environment under controlled conditions with common real-life impairments such as interference, path loss and multipath.

The Landslide octoBox wireless testbed is a powerful integration of a sophisticated protocol level Wi-Fi and multi-UE traffic generator with a completely isolated and real-life RF environment.

By emulating thousands of UEs (User Equipment) and APs (Access Points) on the access side, Landslide provides extensive support for testing Wi-Fi offload gateways and controllers deployed in carrier and enterprise environments.

Integrated with the octoBox STACK wireless testbed, the Landslide octoBox solution combines protocol layer with MIMO-OTA throughput testing. Wireless testing requires a controlled, automated, and repeatable RF environment and testbed building blocks that can challenge and analyse the complex wireless adaptation algorithms.

The octoScope anechoic chambers are an essential part of all RF testing and recommended for any OTA or conducted test setup to ensure reliable and consistent results.

Landslide is aimed at WLAN control plane and scalability testing, mobility and handoff scenarios in carrier Wi-Fi applications.

“An integrated Landslide octoBox wireless testbed offers a unique and powerful combination of emulated traffic for load testing combined with real wireless devices for performance, behaviour and coexistence testing,” said Olga Yashkova, Program Manager - Communications Test & Measurement Practice, Measurement & Instrumentation, Frost & Sullivan.

The Spirent octoScope partnership facilitates testing for new market areas including M2M, IoT, Shared Spectrum and vehicle to vehicle. All of these technologies have challenges of interference, congestion, signal strength, and the ever-present demand of increased data volumes and high expectation of user quality.