Channel Sounder Measurement Verification: Conducted Tests

Channel modeling often provides a basis for the design and deployment of wireless technology. Engineers design systems to operate under certain expected channel conditions. Channel models are typically based on the statistics of a collection of many measurements performed by channel sounders in nominally similar radio-propagation environments. In 2016, researchers at the US Department of Commerce National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) began a collaboration to conduct a series of channel sounder verifications to identify sources of uncertainty due to systematic and random effects in a channel sounder hardware. This report describes conducted-channel measurements designed to focus on errors within the channel sounding hardware as a base-line test of the channel sounder’s performance. Repeat measurements and an analysis of the random components of uncertainty were performed. Sample results are reported and analyzed. The work concludes with guidance and best-practice procedures with the intent of allowing users to perform similar verifications of their channel sounders.