Laboratory equipment manufacturers combine to emulate real-world radio

Testing wireless and radio-based products in real-world conditions could become easier as laboratory equipment manufacturers Elektrobit (EB) and MEDAV combine their expertise to emulate the outside environment in manufacturing facilities.

The MEDAV MIMO Channel Sounder and EB Propsim emulators are now certified as interoperable, producing the necessary conditions for testing to be conducted repeatedly in the laboratory under exactly the same circumstances.

In order to do this, a file-based emulator must be combined with a channel sounder to play back recorded radio channel data from the real world that can then be incorporated into the testing.

"A laboratory environment where real-world radio conditions can be repeated accurately is becoming a must for mobile device developers and operators," says Antti Sivula, senior vice-president of wireless communication tools for EB.

EB Propsim emulators take the place of the real radio channel during testing, providing a realistic but repeatable way to analyse the link between the transmitter and the receiver in a system.