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Solutions for Cost Savings in
Creating Realistic Multi-Emitter
Signal Scenarios


Application Brief
Introduction

Today's radar and electronic warfare (EW) systems face an increasingly cluttered spectral environment.
As an example, the airwaves in an urban setting may include countless RF and microwave emitters--and
therefore potential interferers--such as wireless communications infrastructure, wireless networking
systems and civilian radars. Evaluating radar/EW hardware under a variety of highly realistic scenarios can
help characterize system performance in the presence of multiple interference signals.

To test hardware in the lab environment, one option is to capture actual waveforms in the field and play
them back in the lab environment. Another option is to create highly realistic multi-emitter test signals.
Better yet, combine both to provide flexible test spectrums consisting of both real world signals as well as
simulated formats.

Custom hardware and software to create these test signals can be costly. The design, development and
testing of custom systems takes time, money and resources. This brief describes a commercial, off-the-
shelf (COTS) solution for signal generation and analysis, and presents two example scenarios. Highlights
include creation of multi-emitter test signals, the capture of real world signals, and combining these to
create highly flexible test scenarios.
03 | Keysight | Solutions for Cost Savings in Creating Realistic Multi-Emitter Signal Scenarios - Application Brief




Problem: Today's spectral environment
becoming increasingly crowded with
many sources of potential interferers

Simulation sources have generally been world spectrum with simulated signals imagine combining radar, LTE and
used in electronic systems level (ESL) makes the effort even more complex. 802.11ac wireless LAN (WLAN) signals.
or electronic design automation (EDA) Achieving a common sample rate requires
environments to design RF systems and In the past, a single emitter simulation the cumbersome process of finding
circuits. Until recently, these have been could be used to create a test signal with suitable up-sampling or down-sampling
used to design for a single format within an arbitrary waveform generator (AWG). factors for each signal. This level of
categories such as wireless communica- In such cases the simulation time-step or complexity presents a significant barrier
tions, wireless connectivity or radar. sample rate is set to match the specific to the creation of realistic scenarios that
Modern environments include multiple signal format of interest. For example, in contain multiple emitters.
categories of potential interference an LTE simulation the sample rate might
signals, highlighting the need for more be set to oversample the LTE signal by a Capital investment in test equipment is
capable and flexible test systems. factor of two or four. often balanced against long-term useful-
ness. Flexibility to address emerging sce-
Creating new test systems to provide real- In simulation, using a single sample rate narios and applications are also needed.
istic spectrum emulation for component for a single emitter signal is a relatively Custom-built test equipment typically falls
and system level testing need to take straightforward process; however, today's short in these areas as they are designed
into account today's complex spectral real-world signal scenarios are much for a specific application and often need
environment. Differences in frequency more complex. With most EDA or ESL additional development and redesign for
and modulation types impose a challenge tools, it can be quite challenging to continued usefulness.
in capturing and recreating real world combine multiple signal types that utilize
signals. In addition, combining the real different sample rates. As an example,




Cell Tower
Weather Radar
Cell Tower




Figure 1. Today's cluttered spectral environment.
04 | Keysight | Solutions for Cost Savings in Creating Realistic Multi-Emitter Signal Scenarios - Application Brief




Solution: A COTS configuration creating multi-
emitter waveforms with simulation and high-per-
formance AWGs

Keysight Technologies has developed a The flexibility of this solution is provided for playback (Figure 2). Because the
simulation-based SignalCombiner ele- by Keysight EEsof ESL SystemVue soft- M8190A delivers high resolution and
ment which is capable of re-sampling and ware. In SystemVue, the SignalCombiner wide bandwidth simultaneously, it is
combining of multiple signals that have element enables the creation and well suited to applications that require
different bandwidths and signal types. In combination of multi-emitter signals playback of complex, high fidelity signals.
addition, when used with Keysight test within the simulation environment.
equipment, it can combine real-world Through resampling, multiple emitters are
signals that have been captured and combined into a single waveform that
combine them with library-based signals can be downloaded to a high-precision
to create composite output spectrums. AWG such as the Keysight M8190A



Emitter #1