Test Wi-Fi Performance

octoScope, the leader in accurate, repeatable and automated wireless personal testbeds, today announced the new superPal instrument for testing the latest generation of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices and systems.

Wi-Fi 6 is based on the emerging IEEE 802.11ax standard that uses OFDMA (orthogonal frequency division multiple access) to maximize the efficiency of Wi-Fi networks. OFDMA enables simultaneous communications of multiple stations (e.g. phones, PCs) with a single Access Point radio thereby multiplying the efficiency of the Wi-Fi channel. Wireless operators, network equipment manufacturers and chipset vendors require a new generation of wireless testbeds to validate Wi-Fi 6 (11ax) devices and networks.

octoScope's superPal can be used to test the functionality and efficiency of Wi-Fi 6 technology. As part of the octoBox personal testbed, the superPal enables the testing of 8x8 MIMO OTA (over the air), OFDMA, mesh, roaming, Wi-Fi/BT coexistence and more. It also incorporates interference generation, including radar interference for DFS (dynamic frequency selection) testing.

The superPal's Bluetooth test capabilities cover applications such as BT audio, IoT, sensors (medical, home, security) and HID (human interface device) applications.

The superPal incorporates 2 Wi-Fi radios, 2.4 and 5 GHz, that support all the Wi-Fi protocols: IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax and 2 BT radios that support BT 5/BLE/EDR/AFH (enhanced data rate/adaptive frequency hopping).

The superPal is based on one of the most advanced Wi-Fi 6 chipsets on the market. With the access to the chipset's driver and firmware, you can configure the superPal as a real device or as a powerful test instrument. As a real device, the superPal runs the standard STA (station) and AP (access point) drivers and hence supports the full protocol stack, including PHY, MAC, IP and application layers. As an instrument, the superPal can emulate virtual stations for testing APs under heavy traffic load from multiple stations, perform expert monitoring and analysis, replay captured traffic or operate as a sniffer.

Any of the Wi-Fi or BT radios can operate as sniffers and as octoScope's synchroSniffer probes. The synchroSniffer aggregates captures from multiple Pal or superPal radios synchronized to the octoBox server using Precision Time Protocol (PTP, IEEE 1588v2). The packets captured by each Pal or superPal radio are streamed for viewing in real time while being merged into one PCAP file viewable by Wireshark and other common sniffers. Wi-Fi and BT packets are aggregated by the synchroSniffer in one merged PCAP file. A common timebase on all the synchroSniffer packets ensures that the captures are shown in the correct order for ease of analysis.

The two BT radios in the superPal support testing of key profiles, including A2DP (advanced audio distribution profile), OPP (object push profile), HFP (hands-free profile) and HID (human interface device) in Master or Slave modes.

About the octoBox personal wireless testbed

Stackable and configurable octoBox personal testbeds are completely isolated from external interference and can be used at an engineer's office or lab bench.

Each octoBox testbed is controlled by a dedicated Node.js web server accessible via a browser UI for manual control or via REST API for test automation. The server controls the built-in instruments, traffic, test flow, and DUT configuration and serves as the PTP and NTP time base for the testbed. Test results are saved in a Mongo.DB database, enabling multiple teams to easily collaborate by sharing test results and test automation scripts.