Interference hunting from the skies
P3 Communications is using unmanned aerial vehicles to locate interference in wireless networks, relying on high-definition video and photos of cell sites for visual inspection to augment other spectrum analysis and professional tools to find radio frequency interference sources that are gumming up wireless networks.
“The [Federal Aviation Administration] significantly lowered the barrier to entry for commercial drone operations when it created remote pilot certification standards this past summer. An operator no longer has to hold an airplane pilot’s license to use a drone for commercial purposes within newly defined parameters,” said Michael Schwab, VP of radio access engineering for New Jersey-based P3 communications, Inc., adding that the use of drones has been made possible by new FAA regulations for commercial UAVs. “I received my Remote Pilot Certificate last month and we have begun to utilize drones in our interference hunting operations,” Schwab said.
“Although current regulations allow commercial drones to fly as high as 400 feet, cellular antennas are mounted on towers that are typically 100-200 feet in height,” Schwab went on to say. “Drones can access these wireless transmitters in areas of a tower that human climbers cannot safely reach. Drones will make our work around towers safer, faster and provide more information than manual inspections. This will allow mobile operators to more quickly address problem areas to improve performance and enhance the overall customer experience and satisfaction with their service.”
P3 added that since cell towers are often used by birds –including protected species — for nesting sites, drones can be used from a distance to visually confirm that chicks have left their nests before bringing in people and equipment for tower work.
In other test news this week:
–Rohde & Schwarz said that it had a “solid fiscal year” and revenues of about $2.1 billion between July 2015 to June 2016. Its employee base rose from 9,900 to 10,000 as of June 30, 2016.
Rohde & Schwarz is privately held and releases few details about its finances. The company did report that “the largest contributor to the group’s positive results was again mobile communications [test and measurement], despite a market environment that remained subdued. Fifth generation mobile communications (5G) and the Internet of Things (IoT) provided new impetus, and Rohde & Schwarz is playing an active role in the development of these two future technologies.” R&S added that it is seeing growth in test demand in the automotive industry.
The company also this week announced that it is investing in an enterprise network infrastructure company. LANCOM Systems, a fellow German company which manufactures equipment for local, wide and wireless area networks, has two major shareholders leaving its fold. R&S plans to purchase their holdings in the company.
According to a company statement on the transaction, “shareholders are committed to the common objective of developing LANCOM Systems into the leading European provider of LAN, WAN and WLAN infrastructures. The recently announced entry into the market for cloud-based network management, combined with SDN/SD-WAN technologies (software-defined networking/software-defined WAN), will play a key role.”
The deal is subject to approval under anti-trust regulations in Germany. Financial terms of the deal and additional details were not disclosed. LANCOM has about 270 employees, and the company said that since it was established in 2002, it has seen a compound annual growth rate of 14%.
–Teradyne reported revenue of $410 million for the third quarter of 2016, down from around $466 million during the same quarter last year. The company said that $322 million of its revenue came from semiconductor testing, $37 million in system testing, $28 million in wireless testing and $24 million in industrial automation. Net income for the quarter was $63.8 million. .
“Third quarter revenue came in above our guidance based on strong demand for our UltraFlex System-on-a-Chip system,” said CEO and President Mark Jagiela in a statement. “While tester demand remained strong for mobile devices, we also saw a pick-up in orders for automotive analog and microcontroller testers.”
–Cadence Design Systems partnered with MathWorks on a new solution for assessing system-level design and circuit-level implementation for internet of things and automotive applications.
–Anritsu claims a world-first for 400G network testing in the form of its 56 Gbaud NRZ/PAM4 bit error rate test offering to support 53.125 Gbaud pulse-amplitude-modulation with four amplitude levels (PAM-4) transmission as part of the 400 gigabit Ethernet transmissions.
The company also launched a new solution for USB 3.1 receiver testing that integrates a number of its offerings to provide an all-in-one receiver tester for compliance testing with communications devices and serial BUS interface designs.
–Tektronix has a new DisplayPort Type-C transmitter test offering that is says “significantly reduces compliance test times compared to both previous Tektronix DisplayPort solution and those available from competitors”. Tektrnoix said that real-world field tests of the device showed that the new solution, used in conjunction with its high-performance oscilloscopes, supported testing a full suite of DisplayPort Type C compliance tests in less than 6 hours, compared to other offerings that typically take up to 16 hours. The offering reduced set-up time for compliance tests by offering automated options.
Tektronix also claimed an industry first with the launch this week of a software test solution for the Open NAND Flash Interface (ONFI) standard, which can be used with its oscilloscopes for ONFI 4.0 testing for Flash memory.
