With options ZVR-B4 (mixer measurements), ZVR-B5 (nonlinear measurements) and ZVR-B7 (power calibration) installed, signal generators and power meters can be controlled from ZVR network analyzers via the IEC/IEEE bus. Customary signal generators and power meters are supported by the device firmware. This application note describes how user-specific configuration files can be generated for and adjusted to external equipment of these two categories.

19-Oct-1998 | AN-No. 1EZ46

The measurement of bit error rate (BER) is an important test procedure for determining the performance of a receiving terminal. This is especially important for set top box and chipset manufacturers who need to know if their product is able to meet the specification under a predefined noise condition. This Application Note describes the technique using an Rohde & Schwarz SFU to measure the BER of digital set top boxes.

19-Dec-2006 | AN-No. 7BM51

Power converters with a full-bridge topology are frequently used in telecommunications and servers that need to be compact, efficient and cost sensitive, making them more complex. Switching patterns for all the main primary switches including synchronous rectifier switches need to be validated after the first protype is built. This complex validation requires proper measurement of switching patterns to prevent catastrophic switching patterns. Expertise and the right measurement tools are essential when identifying unexpected events in the converter switching process.

17-Jan-2024

Most of today's electronic devices draw non‑sinusoidal current. This gives rise to harmonic currents injected back into the public supply system. These need to be checked on all devices with the CE marking.

12-Oct-2018

Vector Network Analyzers of t ZNA and ZNB family are able to measure magnitude and phase of complex S-parameters of a device under test (DUT) in the frequency domain. By means of the inverse Fourier transform the measurement results can be transformed to the time domain. Thus, the impulse or step response of the DUT is obtained, which gives an especially clear form of representation of its characteristics. For instance, faults in cables can thus be directly localized. Moreover, special time domain filters, so-called gates, are used to suppress unwanted signal components such as multireflections. The measured data "gated" in the time domain are then transformed back to the frequency domain and an Sparameter representation without the unwanted signal components is obtained as a function of frequency. As usual, other complex or scalar parameters such as impedance or attenuation can then be calculated and displayed.

30-Jul-2020 | AN-No. 1EP83

Primer

A power sensor is a fundamental measurement tool in RF engineering. However, today's marketplace is filled with myriad choices, and many are making bold claims about attributes such as measurement speed and readings per second. As a result, it can be difficult to cut through the hyperbole and determine which sensor will actually meet the requirements of a specific measurement.This primer outlines the basics of RF power sensors and highlights a few key characteristics that will help you select the best one for each application. The narrative has three parts. First, we focus on choosing the right type of sensor: multipath, wideband, average power and thermal can satisfy slightly different measurement needs. The second section covers the five major attributes of sensor performance, and what to look for relative to your requirements. Finally, we outline three ways to integrate a sensor into your measurement application.

26-May-2021

Balanced RF components are advantageous compared to traditional single-ended components, since they cause less EMI, and are less susceptible to EMI. This application note describes the fundamental concepts of differential and common mode signals and of mixed-mode parameters, which are essential for balanced components. Techniques for the measurement of mixed-mode parameters are presented. Examples show the features implemented in the ZVB for balanced device measurement.

20-Sep-2004 | AN-No. 1EZ53

This application note describes how to measure the antenna pattern of a mm-Wave device in the R&S®ATS1000 shielded chamber. This includes the required calibration of the measurement setup and a possible near field to far field transformation when measuring larger devices.

28-May-2018 | AN-No. 1MA304

conducted conformance testing according to TS 38.141-1, Rel. 16

3GPP defines the Radio Frequency (RF) conformance test methods and requirements for 5G NR Base Stations (BS) in the technical specifications TS 38.141. This application note describes how all mandatory RF performance tests (TS 38.141-1, chapter 8), according to Release 16, can be performed quickly and conveniently with signal generators from Rohde & Schwarz by either choosing manual operation or a remote control approach.In Addition, a new Python software library comes with this application note to enable the remote control approach of base station testing. This example requires the RsInstrument module which can be found on pypi.org or installed via 'pip' and is provided as is.

24-Oct-2019 | AN-No. GFM315

While Mobile phones are allowed to require approximately 3 time slots for switching from transmission to reception, base stations must be able to transmit and receive at a new frequency in every time slot in the frequency hopping mode. This behaviour must of course be tested and measurements carried out on the base station transmitter and receiver. Since there is no signal generator which is able to settle at different frequencies from one to the next time slot with GSM modulation, a solution to this problem was found by linking two Signal Generators SME in such a way that they alternately provide signals at different frequencies.

01-Jul-1999 | AN-No. 1GPAN28

Most of the tests specified in standard TS 34.121 that 3GPP WCDMA user equipment (UE) has to fulfill can be performed solely by the Universal Radio Communication Tester CMU200 universal radio communication tester. Other tests, however, require additional instruments for generating one or more interfering signals, for fading setup or for high dynamic spectrum analysis. This application note shows how easy it is to perform these tests with the remote-control software CMUgo, using the CMU200 in combination with R&S signal generators and R&S spectrum analyzers.

09-Dec-2008 | AN-No. 1MA130

This application explains the setup and procedure to measure the exact time relationship between the CDMA RF signal and even-second clock. The accurate knowledge of this time relationship is e.g. necessary for test setups which require the synchronization of the R&S®CMU200’s CDMA2000 system with a GPS simulator.

09-Nov-2007 | AN-No. 1CM33

The IP connection security analysis solution for the R&S®CMW500 platform identifies IP connection vulnerabilities in telematics units at an early stage of development.

18-Jul-2017

Welcome to our short video tutorials on how to test radars using Rohde & Schwarz test equipment. Access to most information about radar is pretty restricted, as many radar applications are military or secretive industrial research. To show you some basic Radar tests we have created RADAR demo tools, which functions at a frequency of 2.45 GHz, which is in the unlicensed 2.4 GHz Industrial, Scientific and Medical band. So we can even perform our tests in unshielded rooms. The frequencies are also used by radar operating in the ITU "S"-band from 2.3 to 2.5 GHz for air traffic control, weather and marine radar. The videos are suitable for 'from-the-scratch' introduction of R&S RADAR test equipment. They can also be used for plain introduction to the RADAR principle.

03-Feb-2014 | AN-No. 1MA209

This Application Note describes a software program that provides easy creation and transfer of Pulse Trains between a PC and the R&S SMB100A, R&S SMA100A and R&S SMF100A analog signal generators with the Pulse Train option; or between a PC and the ARB of R&S SMBV100A, R&S SMJ100A or R&S SMU200A vector signal generators.

10-May-2011 | AN-No. 1MA148

Recent mobile test methods could not evaluate the quality of data reduced speech signals with different coded and decoded signals. The Perceptual Evaluation of Speech Quality (PESQ) provides the solution for this measuring problem. CDMA2000 PESQ is an add-on tool for CMUgo for automatic measurement of the PESQ for CDMA2000 mobile phones according to recommendation ITU-T P.862.1 featuring selectable fading profiles and variable Additional White Gaussian Noise (AWGN).

05-Jan-2012 | AN-No. 1MA136

This application note describes how to connect a communication tester CMU200 with B-17 (IQ-IF interface option) to a ABFS fading simulator with B-49 dynamic fading option (3GPP) for generating signals under fading conditions. An additional program performs a semi automatic level correction of power fed to the user equipment.

25-Jun-2008 | AN-No. 1MA54

The R&S®SMW200A vector signal generator has the outstanding ability to simultaneously generate up to eight independent signals from a single instrument. The advanced multi-channel architecture allows realizing even complex applications like MSR, carrier aggregation, MIMO or enhanced interference scenarios with a minimum of effort.This application note gives an overview of common multi-channel application examples and how to equip the Rohde & Schwarz signal generator R&S®SMW200A appropriately.

12-Mar-2018 | AN-No. 1GP106

Offering bandwidths up to 160 MHz, the signal generators and analyzers from Rohde & Schwarz are ideal for testing IEEE 802.11ac signals

27-Jun-2013

The R&S®SMW200A together with the R&S®FSW is a state of the art testing solution that significantly reduces the required hardware for testing power amplifiers with envelope tracking and/or digital pre-distortion. This application note introduces the test solution in detail and presents corresponding measurement examples.

25-Sep-2014 | AN-No. 1GP104

Before devices can be used in a LoRaWANTM network, they must among other things meet country-specific wireless communications regulations. This application note shows developers and manufacturers of devices with LoRa wireless technology how transmitter measurements are conducted in line with FCC Part 15.247. It also describes how important receiver characteristics can be verified by metrological means. In this context, battery life in particular plays a key role in IoT applications. A further chapter describes how current consumption of LoRa wireless modules can be measured reliably.

29-Nov-2017 | AN-No. 1MA295

This application note describes ATSC Mobile DTV standard A/153, ATSC-M/H. This standard is completely implemented in the R&S®AEM100 ATSC-M/H Emission Multiplexer.

22-Jan-2011 | AN-No. 7EB01

R&S®SITLine ETH protects against spionage and manipulation without decreasing throughput.

03-Mar-2015

With advances in digital signal processing techniques modern wireless communications systems and radar systems have become increasingly digital and more constraints have been placed on packing more information into less and less bandwidth. On the wireless side, modulation formats have become more complicated with less margin for symbol error. On the radar side, modern radar systems are trying to extract more information about the targets they track and provide the ability to track slow moving targets such as automobiles and personnel in the presence of clutter.For both communications and radar systems one of the key RF parameters that limits system performance is phase noise. As systems engineers develop new and more advanced RF systems, phase noise of oscillators and transmitters can no longer be overlooked.This application note will focus on phase noise measurements for pulsed RF carriers such as those used for radar systems. We will address some of the physical limitations relating to pulsed phase noise measurement and introduce the capabilities of the new Rohde & Schwarz FSWP phase noise analyzer.

18-May-2016 | AN-No. 1EF94

Combining the R&S®Pulse Sequencer software with one of the vector signal generators from Rohde & Schwarz is the perfect solution for defining and playing pulses.

09-May-2017

The R&S®SMW200A signal generator together with the R&S®Pulse Sequencer software simplifies signal generation for multi-emitter environments.

24-Feb-2015

Timing components such as low jitter oscillators and clocks are necessary to facilitate increasing data rates in high speed digital designs. As part of the overall system design, the components also have to perform in the system’s non-ideal power integrity environment and limit the power supply induced phase noise and jitter from power rail disturbances. Measuring the power supply noise rejection (PSNR) requires accurate generation and leveling of artificial, sinusoidal disturbances and measurement of resulting phase-noise and jitter impairments.

30-Sep-2020

This application note shows how to operate the Automation Manager tool in the R&S® CRTU-W to perform an automated FTP operation during a test scenario.

22-Nov-2007 | AN-No. 1CM68

Signal generators are often used in automated test environment applications. The replacement of those instruments, e.g., due to malfunction or standard replacement procedures requires special care to be taken in consideration. Replacement of those instruments requires compabitiblity between the replacement and the replaced device in at least the electrical and remote-control features. This application note describes in detail how to use the emulation modes of the R&S® series SMA100A, SMB100A, SMF100A signal generators.

24-Jun-2008 | AN-No. 1GP71

A test setup is described for easy demonstration of the Bit Error Rate Test (BERT) function of AMIQ/AMIQ-B1. The test setup contains I/Q Modulation Generator AMIQ/AMIQ-B1 controlled by I/Q Simulation Software WinIQSIM, Vector Signal Generator SMIQ and Spectrum/Vector Signal Analyzer FSE/FSE-B7. The FSE with FSE-B7 is used as online FSK demodulator (setting: Analog demodulation, FM Signal, DC coupling, Real Time On) to demodulate the SMIQ RF signal FSK-modulated by PRBS data. The AMIQ is controlled by WinIQSIM software and receives the demodulated AF output signal from the FSE for BER testing.

29-Sep-1998 | AN-No. 1MA16