Keithley Instruments has expanded its SignalMeister software platform to include RF signal analysis along with RF signal generation. The SignalMeister software integrates signal generation and analysis into one package for speed and simplicity.

SignalMeister now has the capability of generating and analyzing both single-input single-output (SISO) and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) signals in the same environment. With the software, research, design, and test engineers can quickly and easily create and analyze signals with a powerful,  easy to use, block diagram-based, graphical user interface.

In addition, the SignalMeister RF Communications Toolkit supports the latest wireless, MIMO protocol standards, WiMAX Wave 2 and 802.11n WLAN. It also provides additional complex functionality such as WLAN channel modeling, beamforming, simulation studies, along with a rich set of IQ operations, and full utilities for data import and export. 

SignalMeister software is a RF communications toolkit that lets engineers create and analyze the highly complex signals required for RF testing. An expandable software platform with a common user interface, it allows creation of waveforms from multiple signal standards with optional additive signal impairments and channel modeling in a single development environment. The software allows MIMO signals to be created and analyzed as easily as SISO signals, simplifying the challenging task of MIMO testing for manufacturers developing and supplying mobile phones, wireless infrastructure, and RF chip sets in both production and R&D environments.

The software is an integrated, and complete RF communications testing toolkit, featuring both signal generation and analysis capability. This tight integration of signal generation and analysis eliminates the need for multiple software tools. The user only has one program and a single user interface to learn. This increases test speed and greatly simplifies testing, especially for complex MIMO signal structures, making testing MIMO easy and flexible.

SignalMeister software integrates seamlessly with Keithley’s Series 2800 Vector Signal Analyzers (VSA) and Series 2900 Vector Signal Generators (VSG) through these instruments’ LXI interface for simplified test system setup, start up, and multi-instrument synchronization for MIMO test systems. Users can set up a test system for any number of channels from single channel to 4X4 MIMO and even up to 8X8 MIMO in minutes, lowering test development time and the overall cost of test.  

The software also supports all standard-defined channel models for leading-edge WLAN 802.11n signals. Channel modeling defines the various multi-path scenarios that must be tested for device certification. The channel models included with SignalMeister software support one to four inputs and outputs. In addition to specific channel models, SignalMeister includes I, Q impairments so that receiver performance can be evaluated when receiving signals from improperly-adjusted transmitters. Channel impairments such as frequency shift and noise can be added to a signal to test a receiver’s ability to accurately recover a distorted or low signal-to-noise ratio transmission.

Availability

SignalMeister RF Communications Toolkit is available at no charge. A CD containing the software can be requested from Keithley's website at www.keithley.com/signal.

More information: http://keithley.acrobat.com/signalmeister3 or www.keithley.com.