The PXIe-5840 from National Instruments is a PXI Vector Signal Transceiver (VST) that 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 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 VST has a software-designed approach, bacause of which it provides the flexibility of a software defined radio architecture with RF instrument-class performance. It combines the fast measurement speed and small form factor of a production test box with the flexibility and high performance of R&D-grade box instruments. This means you can use the VST to test a variety of cellular and wireless standards such as IEEE 802.11ax with an error vector magnitude of better than -45 dB (0.5 percent) at 5.8 GHz. In addition, you can easily expand the VST's small 2-slot 2U PXI Express form factor to support multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) configurations.
Built on LabVIEW FPGA, the software for the VST features several starting points for your application including application IP, reference designs, examples, and LabVIEW sample projects. These open software starting points include default LabVIEW FPGA personalities and prebuilt FPGA bitfiles to help you get started quickly and offer the ability to fully customize them.
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
