National Instruments has announced the second-generation vector signal transceiver (VST). The NI PXIe-5840 module is the world’s first 1 GHz bandwidth VST that is designed to solve the most challenging RF design and test applications.
NI Introduced the 1st generation of the VST back in 2012. At the time this was the industry's first with an FPGA programmable by LabVIEW to accelerate the pace of design and lower the cost of test. The second-generation VST demonstrates NI’s continued empowerment of engineers with software-designed instrumentation to stay ahead of the complex and rapidly changing wireless technologies and requirements with the most innovative RF test, measurement and prototyping solutions in the market.
This transceiver combines a 6.5 GHz RF vector signal generator, 6.5 GHz vector signal analyzer, high-performance user-programmable FPGA and high-speed serial and parallel digital interfaces into a single 2-slot PXI Express module. With 1 GHz of bandwidth, this latest VST is ideally suited for a wide range of applications including 802.11ac/ax device testing, mobile/Internet of Things device testing, 5G design and testing, RFIC testing, radar prototyping and more.
The software-designed architecture powering the 2nd generation VST enables engineers to uniquely customize the user-programmable FPGA. Using the intuitive LabVIEW system design software, engineers can transform the VST into exactly what they need it to be at the firmware level and ultimately address the most demanding test and measurement challenges.
Product Features:
- 1 GHz of instantaneous bandwidth for advanced digital pre-distortion (DPD) test and wideband signals such as radar, LTE-Advanced Pro and 5G
- Excellent measurement accuracy that enables the second-generation VST to measure 802.11ax Error Vector Magnitude (EVM) performance of -50 dB
- Measurement speeds up to 10X faster than traditional instrumentation using FPGA-based measurement acceleration and highly optimized measurement software
- Small size and tight synchronization allowing for up to 8x8 multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) configuration in a single 18-slot chassis
- User-programmable FPGA that engineers can easily design with LabVIEW
According to Niels Koch, component owner radar systems, Audi AG - The combination of the industry’s widest bandwidth and low latency software-designed instrument allowed them to discover their automotive radar sensors as never before, and even allowed them to identify problems very early in the design phase that were previously impossible to catch. With this VST and FPGA programmable by LabVIEW, they were able to rapidly emulate a wide range of diverse scenarios, thus influencing safety and reliability aspects in autonomous driving.
The VST is a vital part of the NI platform and ecosystem that engineers can use to build smarter test systems. These test systems benefit from more than 600 PXI products ranging from DC to mmWave. They feature high-throughput data movement using PCI Express Gen 3 bus interfaces and sub-nanosecond synchronization with integrated timing and triggering. Users can take advantage of the productivity of the LabVIEW and NI TestStand software environments, along with a vibrant ecosystem of partners, add-on IP and applications engineers, to help dramatically lower the cost of test, reduce time to market and future-proof testers for tomorrow’s challenging requirements.
