I Need To Measure Wi-Fi Signals - Now What?

The wireless standard referred to as Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) introduces new technologies to mitigate the shortcomings of previous generations. Subsequently, Wi-Fi 6E extended the frequency range to 7.125 GHz. These technical improvements challenge the capabilities of Wi-Fi testing, including RF power measurement.

With conventional methods failing to fully characterize high-performance Wi-Fi 6 chipsets and devices, crest factor measurements and statistical depictions like the complementary cumulative distribution function (CCDF) are proving to be valuable analysis tools to address Wi-Fi power measurement requirements. Additionally, there is the need to verify the correct alignment of multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) signals. First, we’ll look at crest factor and CCDF measurements and then address the MIMO topic.