Anritsu has added channel fading simulation into its leading 4G LTE-Advanced Signalling Tester to support the latest MIMO multi-antenna designs.
The new digital baseband fading options convert the MD8430A into a full-featured fading simulator supporting industry standard 3GPP-defined fading profiles and is the first LTE-Advanced signalling tester with built-in fading to support the 4x4 MIMO downlink configuration.
Tall structures, such as buildings and trees, reflect and scatter transmitted radio waves, meaning the receiver actually receives multiple original signals arriving from ‘multipaths’ with different strengths, times, and directions.
A key feature of LTE-Advanced is the MIMO antenna system that improves device performance by exploiting multipaths. To test such MIMO devices thoroughly, multipath fading effects must be applied accurately to every antenna in a reproducible manner.
Using internal digital baseband processing, the MD8430A applies multipath effects during test execution, and the Rapid Test Designer (RTD) software provides testers with an integrated environment for creating and running fading simulation tests.
Support for LTE-Advanced features, such as Carrier Aggregation and MIMO, make the MD8430A the ideal solution in helping leading chipset designers build the next generation of high-performance mobile devices. In addition to testing devices over an RF connection, the MD8430A with fading option also supports a slow-clock digital interface to verify designs in a simulation environment before starting expensive ASIC production.