Method and apparatus for controllable simulation of mobility
First Claim
1. A system for testing a wireless data communication device, comprising:
- a packet transmission datapath for transmitting wireless test data packets to said wireless data communication device;
a packet reception datapath for receiving wireless test data packets from said wireless data communication device; and
wherein said packet transmission datapath introduces controlled levels of impairment into said transmitted wireless test data packets, by increasing the frame error ratio of said transmitted wireless test data packets, to emulate the effects of spatial separation between said wireless data communication device and said system.
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Abstract
Systems and methods enabling the efficient and repeatable simulation of mobility, during performance measurements of wireless data communications equipment are described. These are particularly useful for testing the impact on performance of spatial separation between Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) devices, such as clients, relative to their counterparts, such as access points. For example, in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention, the controlled emulation of spatial distance effects by injecting impairments into the transmitted and received wireless data packet streams are disclosed to simulate the impact of distance on properties such as signal level, signal to noise ratio, and frame error ratio. Injection of impairments may be accomplished by varying the transmit power, artificially inducing errors into transmitted frames, and withholding acknowledgements for otherwise valid received frames, at levels consonant with the amount of distance to be emulated. This enables various mobility performance measurements to be made on WLAN devices without actually requiring that they be physically separated.
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Citations
36 Claims
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1. A system for testing a wireless data communication device, comprising:
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a packet transmission datapath for transmitting wireless test data packets to said wireless data communication device; a packet reception datapath for receiving wireless test data packets from said wireless data communication device; and wherein said packet transmission datapath introduces controlled levels of impairment into said transmitted wireless test data packets, by increasing the frame error ratio of said transmitted wireless test data packets, to emulate the effects of spatial separation between said wireless data communication device and said system. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A system for testing a wireless data communication device, comprising:
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a packet transmission datapath for transmitting wireless test data packets to said wireless data communication device; a packet reception datapath for receiving wireless test data packets from said wireless data communication device; and wherein said packet reception datapath introduces controlled levels of impairment into the packet reception process to emulate the effects of spatial separation between said wireless data communication device and said system. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29)
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30. A method for emulating the effects of spatial separation between a wireless data communication tester and a wireless data communication device, comprising:
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transmitting wireless test data packets from said wireless data communications tester to said wireless data communications device; receiving wireless test data packets by said wireless data communications tester from said wireless data communications device; introducing controlled levels of transmit impairment into said transmitted wireless test data packets; and simulating controlled levels of receive impairment in said received wireless test data packets. - View Dependent Claims (31, 32, 33, 34, 35)
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36. The method of 30, wherein said receive impairment is introduced by withholding acknowledgements for said received wireless test data packets at random intervals with a predetermined probability.
Specification