Industry First Network Mode for Evaluating IEEE802.11ac WLAN Devices Launched

Phil Black - PII Editor 29/03/2017

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Wireless Connectivity Test Set MT8862A offering an Efficient, Accurate and Economical Solution to the Measurement of IoT devices Now Available

Anritsu Corporation is pleased to announce the availability of the new Wireless Connectivity Test Set MT8862A, an integrated one-box test set specifically for testing 802.11 WLAN devices.

The MT8862 has advanced features, including built-in communications protocols, to create a more efficient, accurate and economical solution to verify the performance of WLAN devices in their actual operating state.

With built-in communications protocols, the MT8862A measures the performance of the WLAN devices in the actual operating state, and is the first test equipment of its kind to support all IEEE802.11ac/n/a/g/b standards.

The MT8862A uses the Network Mode to measure the performance of the target WLAN device under test (DUT) in the actual operating state. RF performance characteristics, such as Tx power and Rx sensitivity (PER), can be measured using this Network Mode, which helps with configuration of a simpler test environment and eliminates the need for dedicated vendor-provided test modes required for WLAN device inspections.

Generally, WLAN measuring instruments for manufacturing inspections use a special inspection test mode for measurement that requires a physical control line connection between the WLAN devices and measuring instrument.

Consequently, the evaluation results are not a true reflection of the actual performance experienced by users because the performance of the measured WLAN devices is analysed using physical connection with a control line without considering the effect of the internal wireless antennas.

Although Anritsu’s current MT8860C model used for these analyses has a network mode, it does not support IEEE802.11ac standard. To solve this problem, Anritsu developed the new model implementing support for the IEEE802.11ac Network Mode.

The Wireless Connectivity Test Set MT8862A is ideal for measuring the RF TRx characteristics at design and quality assurance of WLAN devices. It has built-in WLAN protocol messaging as standard for Network Mode for measurement by connection with the DUT.

The MT8862A is easy to operate using a web browser from a control PC connected by Ethernet which simplifies measurement setup and eliminates configuration work. In addition, remote control is also supported when the MT8862A and PC controller are inside the same network.