Azimuth Systems Inc. announced robust enhancements to its popular Azimuth Field-to-Lab™(FTL) solution. This latest release of FTL offers new features that allow customers to better visualize the radio environment, profile channel conditions, and more accurately recreate “real world” conditions in the lab using Azimuth’s integrated (open) automation platform, Testbuilder.

Azimuth’s Field-to-Lab solution improves product quality, user satisfaction, and reduces vendors’ time-to-market by providing a bridge between laboratory and field-measured test results. Field-to-Lab allows the dynamically-changing RF conditions collected by drive test scanners/tools to be replayed in the lab through the company’s ACE™ MX Universal MIMO channel emulator. The latest features, enabled by Azimuth’s DIRECTOR II™Test Builder, further establish Azimuth’s Field-to-Lab solution as the industry’s most comprehensive test bed for wireless technologies. This holistic approach to real world testing results in consistency and delivers more reliable and repeatable results.

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“Our goal with the new Field-to-Lab release is to put ‘the world in your lab’ more effectively than ever,” said Ajay Patel, executive director of product management for Azimuth Systems.  “The latest enhancements for Azimuth’s Field-to-Lab solution are the direct result of customer and partner suggestions and will continue to increase the value of FTL’s visualization and profiling tools.”

The powerful enhancements to the Director II management software (Version 7.4) —  the flexible tool that provides centralized control over Azimuth’s Field-to-Lab solution —  address the growing needs of the 2G/3G/4G and LTE markets, including:

  • Mapping algorithms: AzMapper now supports advanced algorithms to map LTE field data which includes the ability to recognize dynamic non-standard channel conditions.
  • Wider compatibility: AzMapper now supports Universal Mobile Telecommunications Service (UMTS) logs collected with the Rhode & Schwartz TSM-W as well as LTE logs collected with Accuver XCAL.
  • Visualization: GPS Centric Playback and live map capability enables dynamic plotting of GPS coordinates and overlay of critical performance data.
  • Troubleshooting: AzMapper user-specified correlation allows testers the ability to define or override correlations in the log files, providing greater flexibility in troubleshooting and debugging options. This capability is particularly effective for addressing throughput related issues for the latest generation of 4G protocols.
  • Automation: Test Builder now includes support for QXDM automation and UE control (through QXDM). It also includes a fully featured device benchmarking module for automating test of multiple UEs. With this capability, Test Builder and Field-to-Lab are now uniquely able to simultaneously benchmark multiple UEs against a common RF environment eliminating the need for cumbersome scripting.

As part of the enhanced Field-to-Lab solution, Azimuth’s award-winning ACE MXwireless channel emulator is used to replicate real-world channel conditions in a controllable and repeatable fashion. A purpose-built, enhanced testing solution, the ACE MX wireless channel emulator is architected to meet the demanding needs of Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output (MIMO) and orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM)-based systems for testing LTE and other advanced wireless infrastructure equipment and devices, and also includes all of the backward-compatible channel emulation features to test 2G/3G cellular products.