Companies like National Instruments are working on the prototyping tools for Massive MIMO to help design high-end wireless technology based devices from the scratch. Massive MIMO enables MIMO diversity and transmission without any loss in signal, enables the use of low-cost and low-power components, simplifies the media access control (MAC) layer and also provides robustness to intentional jamming and interference.
Test initiatives and solutions
Cost-effective ways have come up recently to test wireless communication devices at a high speed using shorter and flexible measurement steps. The tools not only test the existing but also the new formats of radio, including WiMAX, Bluetooth, HSPA+ and LTE. Then there are test sets to reduce the capital investment required in order to optimise the architecture for the non-signalling test. These sets help plan the test and troubleshooting graphically, which simplifies the testing process and reduces long-term costs related to the advancements in test modes.
From latency to high-power usage, the new range of embedded components is helping the designers to overcome all the issues that would decrease the popularity of the wireless devices designed by them. It also opens up a lot of opportunities before the designers to choose the best components at a very low price, and the changing technologies are helping further.
The author is a technical journalist at EFY
