PROCESS EQUIPMENT UPDATE
FUTURE INTO THE
New Wi-Fi 7 standards are already leaving Wi Fi 6 in the dust; here we look at two interesting future-proofed WLAN products tested for this high throughput standard
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s the process industry continues to see increasing requirements for connectivity to workers and
sensors, existing networks are being expanded and upgraded.
The R&S multi-channel signalling tester was show at MWC earlier this year
Wireless LAN technology has recently made significant advancements with the completion of Wi-Fi 7 (IEEE standard 802.11be), the introduction of the latest security standard, WPA3, and new Wi-Fi Location capabilities. For existing and emerging wireless
use cases, this next generation WLAN offers new capabilities that can match or exceed 5G and 6G in most ways, typically at a lower cost. While Wi-Fi 7 provides notable
improvements in data throughput, the most significant advancements are improvements in efficiency, and manufacturers have begun releasing a plethora of products that make use of this new standard.
ROHDE & SCHWARZ DEMONSTRATED PRODUCTS AT MWC Rohde & Schwarz (R&S) is one such manufacturer, and it displayed its R&S CMX500 multi-technology multi-channel signaling tester at the Barcelona-based tradeshow MWC 2024 earlier this year, The product benefits from newly
added Wi-Fi 7 testing capabilities including a one-box tester that allows research and development engineers of wireless devices to comprehensively test their design’s operation in cellular and non-cellular standards of the latest generation in a single
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www.engineerlive.com
instrument setup. In addition, the R&S CMP180
radio communication tester will verify a signal waveform of 480 MHz bandwidth in loopback mode, making it a future-proof solution for users in research and development and production, even beyond the requirements of Wi-Fi 7.
CHALLENGES OF NEXT-GENERATION WLAN TESTING While the market for the sixth generation of Wi-Fi, IEEE 802.11ax, is still growing, the development of Wi-Fi 7, or IEEE 802.11be, is in full swing. Wi-Fi 7 has been designed for extremely high data throughput. With tens of gigabits of data per second and low latency, it meets the growing demand for ultra-high- definition video streaming, virtual reality and augmented reality applications. Requirements for a higher
throughput are an increased channel bandwidth of 320 MHz, up to 16 spatial streams and 4096 QAM modulation. In addition, for a yet-to- be-defined Wi-Fi 8 (IEEE 802.11bn) standard, even wider channel bandwidths are in discussion. Rohde & Schwarz meets these challenging requirements with its solutions for testing Wi-Fi 7 and beyond. n
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