WiFi
Testing WiFi
Although WiFi is a trademark it is often used to describe a wireless local-area network (WLAN) technology based on one of the IEEE 802.11x industry standards1. Today, most new WiFi-based products adopt either the 802.11g or 802.11n standard.
A WiFi-equipped device is a transceiver that sends and receives signals in the 2.4 or 5 GHz frequency spectra. Most WiFi devices operate on a 2.4 GHz frequency channel because these are permitted globally.
During development of a WiFi-equipped device, you have to ensure that the design meets the appropriate IEEE 802.11 standard for both transmitting (TX) and receiving (RX). You need a means of capturing the device’s transmitted signal and analyzing it to make sure its characteristics are consistent with its standard. You also need a way of generating an appropriately structured WiFi signal so that the device’s receiver can be tested against specifications for sensitivity, bit error rate (BER), and packet error rate (PER).
You could use discrete instruments – signal generator, spectrum analyzer, power meter, and the like – to conduct the various TX and RX tests. But this is tedious and time consuming. Beginning with LitePoint’s IQview and IQflex test systems all the necessary tools have been integrated into a single unit which allows you to do extensive TX and RX testing. The graphical user interface is designed to make control intuitive and to provide valuable graphical and tabular results information.
IQview is designed for development testing, including device verification testing (DVT). IQflex is designed for manufacturing test where it is no longer necessary to prove out the design and testing can focus on identifying devices with manufacturing defects.
LitePoint’s IQsignal plus IQwave software provide the graphical user interface plus a very versatile tool for creating RX test waveforms. These are used with IQview to provide precise and comprehensive development testing. IQfact software products are chipset-specific manufacturing test programs that run on IQflex and provide the fastest solutions for production WiFi testing, and the quickest transition from development to volume production.
Some devices have a combination of wireless standards, such as WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and FM. LitePoint makes the world’s only Multicom™ tester – IQ2010 – designed for testing multiple wireless standards, faster, and in parallel.
1. http://standards.ieee.org/getieee802/download/802.11-2007.pdf