Fast stream

today introduced what it describes as the industry's first software tool that provides fast waveform creation for the design and verification of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) ultra-wideband (UWB) transceivers and components. Signal Studio for multiband OFDM UWB produces waveforms compliant with the Multiband OFDM Alliance (MBOA) proposal for 802.15.3a.

Agilent says Ultra-wideband (UWB) is an RF technology offering low-power, high-speed data transmission (400 to 500 Mbps) over a short range (approximately five metres). This new personal area network (PAN) technology is said to be ideal for applications where very-high-speed wireless data transfer is required, such as streaming video.

Signal Studio for multiband OFDM UWB enables designers to generate accurate and standard-compliant UWB signals when used with the Agilent E8267D PSG vector signal generator and a wideband arbitrary waveform generator.

The software's flexibility reportedly facilitates thorough receiver performance verification that requires full control of the OFDM UWB transmit waveform, including encoding, interleaving, preamble, header and payload. The software lets the designer get started quickly without first learning how to use complex test equipment. This enables users to focus on the evaluation of the UWB transceiver and perform key measurements, such as sensitivity and interference rejection.

To test more advanced receiver functions, the designer has the ability to create customised waveforms with multiple groups of packets; each group has different parameter settings such as packet length, data rate, or MAC header values.

The Agilent N7619A software provides full control of parameters for UWB waveforms that are compliant to the specification. In addition, designers can also add waveform impairments, such as frequency offsets, I/Q phase and amplitude imbalance.

Signal Studio for UWB also works with an Agilent spectrum analyser and Agilent N7622A Signal Studio toolkit's optional waveform correction capabilities to generate waveforms with minimal phase and amplitude distortions.

Agilent's E8267D PSG vector signal generator is said to be the industry's only integrated microwave vector signal generator with I/Q modulation up to 44 GHz. The E8267D PSG has a built-in wideband I/Q modulator with inputs for an external baseband generator that delivers up to 2 GHz RF modulation bandwidth.

The software can be evaluated prior to purchase. To download the software and for additional information about Signal Studio software, click here.

Modify parameters and then plot resulting waveforms with Agilent’s Signal Studio for multiband OFDM UWB