Test, Measure and Automate Your World

News Release from: National Instruments
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 21 March 2005

Generators accelerate comms systems design

RF and baseband signals can be generated more than 300 times faster with the PXI-5671 RF vector signal generator and NI PXI-5441 arbitrary waveform generator with onboard signal processing.

Note: A free brochure or catalogue is available from National Instruments on the products in this news release. Click here to request a copy.

Engineers and scientists can now generate RF and baseband signals more than 300 times faster with the new National Instruments PXI-5671 RF vector signal generator and the new NI PXI-5441 arbitrary waveform generator with onboard signal processing. With the release of these modules and the new NI Modulation Toolkit 3.0 for LabView, National Instruments offers a complete modular solution for generating high-speed communications signals. The PXI-5671 module is a three-slot RF vector signal generator that delivers signal generation from 250kHz to 2.7GHz, 20MHz of real-time bandwidth and up to 512Mbyte of memory.

With the onboard digital upconvertor on the module, engineers can achieve more than 300 times faster waveform download time or playback duration.

This functionality is ideal for engineers who require data streaming with rapid response time for software-defined radio (SDR) or faster download times for satellite radio applications.

Engineers also can take advantage of the module's configurable signal processing parameters such as prefilter gain and offset, finite impulse response (FIR) filters, cascaded integrator-comb (CIC) filters, a numerically controlled oscillator (NCO) and IQ mixing.

The new PXI-5441 module, a 100Msample/s arbitrary waveform generator for producing standard functions, arbitrary waveforms and waveform sequences, introduces onboard signal processing functionality.

Onboard signal processing adds baseband interpolation/pulse shaping and quadrature digital upconversion capability for generating baseband I/Q and intermediate frequency (IF) signals up to 43MHz.

The PXI-5441 is the industry's first arbitrary waveform generator to combine these operating modes in a single module with instrument-quality analogue specifications.

The PXI-5671 and PXI-5441 modules ship with the new NI Modulation Toolkit 3.0 for LabView.

In addition to its ability to rapidly prototype any standard-specific or custom digital communication system, the software now includes channel coding, channel equalisation and channel models as well as new, easy-to-use pallet functions for ASK, PAM, AM-VSB and AM-SSB modulation formats.

Because the Modulation Toolkit tightly integrates with NI hardware, engineers can use the software to easily perform hardware-in-the-loop testing.

'Customers benefit from the increase in signal generation speed due to the quadrature digital upconversion capability onboard the NI PXI-5671 and PXI-5441 modules', said Joseph E.

Kovacs, NI RF Product Marketing Manager.

'Using this new technology, engineers can reduce their download and signal generation time from 180 to 0.5s'.

The National Instruments RF and communications product line extends the speed and flexibility of virtual instrumentation into the gigahertz frequency range.

With these tools, engineers have access to customisable functionality unavailable with traditional instrumentation for applications including radio frequency identification (RFID), wireless sensors, wireless telemetry and wireless standards-based testing such as IEEE802.15.4 (Zigbee).

Furthermore, researchers and students can use the tools' flexibility to prototype next-generation communication systems such as multiple input, multiple output (MIMO). Request a free brochure from National Instruments....

National Instruments: contact details and other news
Other news in Board-Level Instruments
Email this news to a colleague

RSS news feed for National Instruments
RSS news feed for Board-Level Instruments
Electronicstalk Home Page

National Instruments logo
Visit the National Instruments website