Bluetooth capabilities are becoming increasingly important for mobile devices, whether in the internet of things space or in traditional mobile devices. Bluetooth testing capabilities have been one major area of development over the past year and two test companies announced news around Bluetooth this week.
LitePoint, which first announced Bluetooth Low Energy over-the-air testing capabilities last fall, has partnered with ETS-Lindgren to create an OTA test system for antenna measurement for BLE devices, which it said is “critical to wireless product developers who need to characterize antenna performance and ensure their product designs will work in customer hands the way they were designed.”
“Antenna performance is critical for any wireless device – if the antenna doesn’t work well, the product doesn’t work well,” said Allen Henley, product marketing manager at LitePoint, in a statement. “ETS-Lindgren is widely recognized as the leader in antenna measurement systems and with this partnership and new measurement solution, together we enable designers to build better [BLE] devices.”
With the emergence of the new Bluetooth 5 standard, a number of test companies are emphasizing their ability to support testing for the standard that kicks up BT speed, range and robustness. Bluetooth 5 devices are expected to hit the market this year.
Teledyne LeCroy this week said it has developed a new Bluetooth Conformance Tester that supports testing to Bluetooth 4.1, 4.2 and 5 specs. It is used in conjunction with a Sodera Wideband Bluetooth Protocol Analyzer to test implementations of BT Low Energy.
In other test news:
-Test vendors are gearing up for this year’s Mobile World Congress. Bureau Veritas announced this week it will launch “smart wear” testing such as personal trackers, virtual reality headsets and smart clothing at MWC, through its 7Layers testing unit. The company is going to be highlighting clothing from strategic partner TexRay AiQ Smart Clothing’s BioMan products; Bureau Veritas noted the company has successfully completed its Smart Wear program.
–Spirent Communications launched what it claims is the first 200G Ethernet test system to support high-speed Ethernet connections with 50G interfaces that can handle the additional speed and capacity being demanded within the data center.
“According to the [Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers], 200G will be the next area for explosive growth in the Ethernet ecosystem due to the insatiable demand for more bandwidth in mobile devices, high-speed data center servers, internet-enabled entertainment (especially video), cloud computing and social media,” Spirent noted in a company statement on the launch.
“Traditionally, combining four electrical interface lanes has been the sweet spot, both technically and economically, for Ethernet technologies” said Neil Holmquist, VP for marketing cloud and IP at Spirent, in a statement. “So just as the use of four 25G lanes has been embraced for 100GbE, it is our belief that the use of four 50G lanes will be widely adopted for 200GbE.”
Spirent also added server-response fuzzing capabilities to its CyberFlood security testing solution, so that firewalls, secure web gateways and other security devices can be assessed on their ability to handle “malformed” traffic.
–Anritsu launched half a dozen models of pocket-sized spectrum analyzers for millimeter wave frequencies to support “5G” systems, wireless backhaul and other use cases. Read the full story here.
-Korean test company Accuver launched a cloud-based system for drive-test management during LTE network rollouts. The XRO product was based on Accuver’s experience in helping an Indian wireless operator launch its network, according to the company, and automates testing and analysis while providing a real-time view of the roll out and network performance.
–Averna inked a deal with M3 Systems to add M3’s Global Navigation Satellite System simulator as a feature on Averna’s AST-1000 platform, extending capabilities for testing navigation and GNSS. M3’s GNSS simulator is based on National Instruments’ Vector Signal Transceiver. The combined solution is said to provide a platform for testing common RF signals used for infotainment (such as AM/FM, HD radio and SiriusXM) with the new addition of GNSS.
