Smartphone test platform in reduced footprint
By Colin Holland, EE Times -- EDN, August 3, 2011
A test system that claims to revolutionize the way
multi-radio devices such as smartphones and USB dongles are designed, tested,
and verified has been developed by OctoScope.The octoBox provides accurate over-the-air (OTA) testing of conventional and MIMO wireless devices in a customizable refrigerator sized anechoic (non-echoing) enclosure.
An OTA test setup has to couple a 3-dimensional electromagnetic energy field into the test instrumentation, which is considerably more challenging to do in a controlled and repeatable manner.
A single unit enables simultaneous parallel testing of eight or more fully assembled smartphones through their antennas.
It also enables seamless RF technology validation during development cycles and production and provides stable far-field conditions with advantages for OTA measurement accuracy, sensitivity, and repeatability. Its dual-chamber architecture, allows test instrumentation and the DUT to reside in the same enclosure, as a complete self-contained test station isolated from the interference of neighboring stations.
In addition to measuring a DUT's 3D antenna pattern, octoBox can integrate test equipment, including a MIMO channel emulator, interference generators, RF sensors, data monitors, and other instruments.
It supports a frequency range from 700 MHz to 6 GHz and can be used for testing multi-radio smartphones, with radios that include cellular, 3G/4G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS, all operating in different regions of the spectrum.
The top chamber typically houses test equipment or a partner device transmitting to and receiving from the DUT. The DUT chamber houses the DUT and the test antennas and features:
- Far-field coupling between the DUT antennas and the test antennas
- Uniform antenna field between the DUT antennas and the test antennas
Optimizing the octoBox for the antenna patterns of each DUT is a natural extension of octoScope's RF and wireless consulting services. In addition to measuring and accommodating the DUT's 3D antenna pattern, octoScope can integrate test equipment, including multipath fading channel emulation, interference generators, RF sensors, data monitors and other instrumentation.
The octoBox is available from $29,800.
This story was originally posted by EE Times.
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