Testing W-CDMA Uplink Signals For Conformance With 3GPP RF Tx Specifications

Summary
Analyzing user equipment (UE) performance for compliance with applicable 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) technical specifications can be a demanding task. UE signal quality and power control are critical parameters to be controlled, especially as the UE moves through one cell's coverage area and/or is handed over to another. This application note describes the 3GPP specifications' test requirements for uplink signals on the radio interface and illustrates how Tektronix Wireless Communication Analyzers provide clear and comprehensive insight into these complex systems.

Challenges in the testing of W-CDMA uplink signals - Short bursts, and critical timing uplinks are complex modulated RF signals that carry user voice and data traffic over the W-CDMA radio interface and perform a number of vital protocol functions for UE/BTS interaction. Signal quality and time correlations are essential to the establishment of reliable connections to the network.

In W-CDMA systems, handovers are complex asynchronous events that make the evaluation of transceiver designs and network performance a challenging task. Errors that occur during handovers are unpredictable and must be captured seamlessly for several super frames in order to analyze their characteristics and tracetheir sources. In-depth analysis of Compressed Mode signals and error conditions calls for correlated measurements in the frequency, time, modulation and code domains.