Tektronix RFXpress Application Software Release Notes Product: Tektronix RFXpress Application Software Version: 5.2 Last Revised: August 27, 2015 Contents of these release notes: Description Target Platforms Target Markets and Application What's new in v5.2? What's new in v5.1? What's new in v5.0? What's new in v4.1? What's new in v4.0? What's new in v3.4? What's new in v3.3? What's New in v3.1? What's New in v3.0? What's New in v2.6? What's New in v2.5? What's New in v2.2? What's New in v2.1? What's New in v2.0? What's New in v1.1? Key features & Benefits Known Issues Pre-requisite Software Compatibility Installation Notes Viewing Sample Files Contacting Tektronix Copyright Description RFXpress is a software package to synthesize digitally modulated base band, IF and RF signals. It takes IQ, IF and RF signal generation to the next level and fully exploits the wideband signal generation capabilities of Tektronix arbitrary waveform generators (AWGs). Target Platforms RFXpress runs on a PC and communicates with AWG70000A or as an integral part of Tektronix AWG5000/7000 Series arbitrary waveform generators. On a PC, runs on the following platforms: (Both 32 and 64 bit versions are supported) - Windows 7 Professional Target Markets and Applications - Design, debug and develop wideband wireless communications receivers. - Generate General purpose digitally modulated IQ, IF and RF signal generation. - Characterize WiMedia MB-OFDM Ultra Wideband (UWB) Radio Platform for Applications like Wireless USB (WUSB), FireWire, Bluetooth, and others. - Capture, modify and re-play IQ signals from Tektronix oscilloscopes. - Modify and re-play IQ signals from Tektronix real time spectrum analyzers. - Design, debug and development of Radar receivers and Radar systems. - Design, debug and development of OFDM based Wireless Signals. - Radar Interference testing and Environment emulation. What's new in v5.2? -RFXpress can detect AWG70000 and connect to it directly while running on AWG70000 series of instruments. -Calibration feature now works with the AC output of AWG70000. -Support Numeric Front panel buttons on AWG70000 instruments. -Version 5.2 is recommended and tested for AWG 7000/5000 "C" series and AWG 70000A series of instruments. -Following features will not be available for AWG 70000A series of instruments -RFX PI commands -Hardware skew, Hardware Interference Addition What's new in v5.1? - Calibration feature of RFXpress has been extended for AWG70000A series of instruments. - Sequence feature in Radar, OFDM and Environment plugin has been enabled for AWG70000A series of instruments. - DUT Characterization feature of RFXpress has been extended for AWG70000A series of instruments. - Version 5.1 is recommended and tested for AWG 7000/5000 "C" series and AWG 70000A series of instruments. - Following features will not be available for AWG 70000A series of instruments -RFX PI commands -Hardware skew, Hardware Interference Addition What's new in v5.0? - RFXpress has been changed so that it can run under non-admin privileges also. - Added support to communicate and send waveforms to AWG 70000A series. - RFXpress can communicate with AWG 70000A instrument only through TekVisa. - TekVisa 4.0 needs to be installed on PC to communicate with AWG 70000A series. - Added a configuration utility, which lets the user configure different models of AWG 70000A series. - Added support to generate waveform length up to 16G samples and the sampling rate up to 50 GS/s. - Version 5.0 is recommended and tested for AWG 7000/5000 "C" series and AWG 70000A series of instruments. - Waveforms compiled in all plug-ins for AWG 70000A instrument will always be a single waveform. - Plots for waveform containing more than 64M samples will not be shown. - Following features will not be available for AWG 70000A series of instruments - Calibration - DUT Characterization - RFX PI commands - Hardware skew, Hardware Interference Addition What's new in v4.1? - Support for various frequency hopping modes in Radar plug-in. - New IF+UP mode in Generic Plug-in to enable users to generate the correct IF signal when user gives RF frequency and local oscillator information. - Bug fix for PI command related to Multipath in Generic signal plug-in. - Bug fix supporting Direct Output state during Calibration process. What's new in v4.0? - New plug-in Environment has been added which enables Radar interference testing and creation of complex scenarios with combination of multiple signals - Support for interference addition with CDMA, GSM, WiFi, WiMAX, DVB-T and W-CDMA standards - Ability to add band-limited, white noise and any user defined signal as interference in the environment. - Support for both sequence and continuous mode operation. - Clutter addition supported in Radar plug-in. - S-Parameter available in all plug-ins. - CPM, SBPSK, and SOQPSK modulation support enabled in Generic plug-in. - Ability to apply S-parameter for imported files. - Support for RSA5K. What's new in v3.4? - IQ/IF/RF magnitude calibration with RSA. - IQ magnitude and phase calibration with Oscilloscope (both Direct IQ & IQ with Modulator) - An option in the Radar compile settings to choose between optimization of frequency or timing parameter of the pulse - Optimized radar signal generation algorithms to create longer duration waveforms. - Support for Windows 7 What's new in v3.3? - Added support for AWG5000C/AWG7000C series of instruments. What's new in v3.1? - Added BPSK, QPSK, Poly-phase code (P1, P2, P3, and P4), Frank code and Up-Down chirp, modulation for Radar plug-in. - Added amplitude profiling for user defined step FM and user defined step PM for Radar plug-in. - Support for phase shift setting for carriers. - Support for re-sampling of external waveforms added through signal addition for Radar and General purpose plug-in. - Scaling of waveform amplitude based on AWG channel amplitude supported. - Support for positive droop for pulse. What's new in v3.0? - New OFDM plug-in - Additive Noise is added under Interference tab of Generic Signal Plug-in - Gaussian Noise Modulation added in Generic Signal plug-in. - Hopping tab is changed to include more features for hopping pattern. - Programmatic Interface has been added to Generic signal plug-in and Radar plug-in. What's new in v2.6? - Compatibility with AWG firmware version 3.3 What's new in v2.5? - New Modulations added in Generic Signal Plug-in - n-DPSK, OOK, PI/2 BPSK, PI/2 QPSK, PI/2 8-PSK, PI/ 2 QAM 16. - New tab called "S-parameters" is added in Generic Signal plug-in. This can be used to emulate the RF components. - New tab called "Sub-carrier Modulation" is added in Generic Signal plug-in. This can be used to perform modulation over modulation. - "Half-Sine" filter added in Generic Signal plug-in. - Ability to add up to 1024 multiple carriers. - Can import ADS and VSA format files. - Can directly control RSA from RFXpress to capture and playback the waveform. - Allows re-sampling the waveform while importing. - New wizard based dialog to capture the characteristics the RF Components (DUT Characterization). - Calibration has been changed to wizard based. - IF Calibration has been provided. - New tab called "Multi-Path" under Pulse tab of Radar plug-in. This can be used to simulate multiple paths of the pulse group. - New tab called "Antenna" under Pulse tab of Radar plug-in. This can be used to Define Antenna Beam Profile and simulate target returns. - New feature to add pulse groups. - In case AWG 7000B series without option 08 is used, the Radar plug-in will use continuous run mode instead of sequence run mode. This will result in creating a single waveform with all the pulse groups. What's new in v2.2? - Defect Fixes What's new in v2.1? - Fixed Calibration issues with AWG 7000B series. - Support for Amplitude and Phase correction of waveform data imported into RFXpress from external sources like MATLAB or Oscilloscope. - Added feature to export correction data in ascii format. - Disabled Multipath and IQ Impairments in case of Analog modulations. What's new in v2.0? - New Radar plug-in. - Support for new AWG 5000B/7000B series. - Direct RF generation support for all bandgroups of UWB-WiMedia (BG1 - BG6) - Hopping feature in Generic signal plug-in. - Calibration for both phase and amplitude correction in Generic Signal and Radar plug-in. - Spectrogram Graph. - Import waveforms in Matlab format (.mat). - I/Q Swap - I Invert, Q Invert - SDPSK modulation in General purpose plug-in What's new in v1.1? - "Ready to Add" Real World Interferences like WiFi (802.11a & MIMO), WiMAX and Radar to the WiMedia Waveform. - Support for marker mapping with delay for external RF hopping control for UWB Wi-Media. - Easier replay of captured waveforms - IQ waveforms captured from Real time spectrum analyzers and automatically set them as baseband signals. - Add Multipath during Waveform creation. - The factory default settings can be restored anytime. - The progress of waveform generation is displayed and can be cancelled during its compilation. - Option to generate non-hopping UWB Wi-Media signals. - Control of both amplitude and phase in Tone Nulling for UWB Wi-Media signals. - Auto Calculation of Oversampling (Sample Rate) and Waveform Length based on the setup. - Restoring AWG/Scope settings after Calibration. - Display of Calibration Correction information on the status bar. - Automatically turn-on the waveform generation and channel output after waveform compilation. - Bug fix: When switching between IF/RF from IQ signal formats, amplitude values were not set to default. - Bug fix: The active waveform name was not displayed on the status bar. Key Features & Benefits Generic Signal - Define Baseband I and Q signals Using a variety of Modulation Schemes - Create single and multi-carrier signals where each carrier is independently defined - Ability to define and create hopping patterns - Apply Impairments such as Quadrature Error and Imbalance or Non-linear Impairments - Add Interferences and Multipaths during waveform Creation - Capture and replay baseband waveform files captured from Oscilloscopes and Real-time Spectrum Analyzers as IQ or IF/RF. Add Impairments and Interferences to the Captured Waveform before Replay - Calibration feature for Flat Frequency and Linear Phase Response out of AWG - Support for Characterizing a DUT and S-parameter emulation of RF components UWB-WiMedia - Direct RF Generation of all the WiMedia Band groups (BG1 to BG6) including Band Hopping - Comprehensive WiMedia Signal Generation support for MAC and PHY Layers - Gated Noise feature can be used to define noise profiles, which can be defined individually for each section of the UWB Packet. (Pre-amble, PPDU Header & PSDU) - Create tone nulling with intermediate values for both amplitude (20 dB to -40 dB) and phase (-180 to +180 °) for OFDM carrier mapping - Ready to use "Real-World Interference" like WiFi (802.11a and MIMO), WiMAX and Radar to the WiMedia waveform - Ability to define your own TFC pattern in custom mode Radar - Create single or multiple pulse groups to form a pulse train - Define each pulse group independently or add different pulse groups to simulate simultaneous multiple target returns - The ability to define all pulse parameters including start time, rise time, off time, fall time, pulse width, droop, overshoot and ripple - The ability to define a staggered PRI with Ramp, User defined profiles and add up to 10 different multipaths. - User defined pulse sequence creation to use the AWG sequence mode to optimize the memory and create large number of pulses - Support for a variety of intra-modulation types including FM chirp, FM step, Barker codes and User Defined Modulation - Define Antenna Beam Profile and simulate target returns OFDM - Ability to configure all parameters of OFDM - Build your own OFDM frame from base data -> Symbols -> Packets -> Frames - Support for Reed Solomon, Convolution coding and Scrambling - Add Impairments Phase noise, Multipath and Quantization - Define frequency hopping and Gated noise - Support for a variety of sub-carrier modulation (BPSK, QPSK, QAM (16,32,64,256) and 8-PSK - Support for Tone Nulling and Clipping - Presets for WiFi and WiMAX standards Environment - Ability to create complex environment with combination of custom signals from plug-ins as well as standard signals. - Support for addition of signals of WiFi, WiMax, DVB-T, CDMA, W-CDMA and GSM standard. - Preview of frequency spectrum and time plot as environment of signals is created. - Support for IF/RF, IQ mode signal generation. - Support for both continuous and sequence mode. - Support from sending data from another plug-ins to environment plug-in and adding user defined signals to the environment. - Support for adding Noise signal to the environment. Known Issues - Graph takes long time to plot: RFXpress application takes a long time to plot waveforms of long record length. - S-Parameter programmatic interface support not available for radar plug-in: Using Radar plug-in has S-Parameter can be applied only through UI and not through programmatic interface. - Importing from Oscilloscope: RFXpress cannot import waveform from scope which is beyond 50M. - Importing from RSA 3k: RFXpress losses connection with RSA 3k at times while acquiring over 40M data. - Preview plot in environment: The environment preview plots will display preview only for first 15 signals only due to memory limitations. - Setup restore: For environment plug-in setup restore does not restore signal duration for Generic and UWB signal if duration is different from default duration. - Generic Signal Hopping: In multicarrier signal if hopping is enabled for 2nd carrier the settings gets lost on moving focus to another carrier. - Progress bar: In OFDM plugin the application seems to be frozen since the progress bar does not update periodically. - Occasional crash at startup: Occasionally when the application is invoked an error pops up and RFXpress does not get started. To get it to work again, locate the RFXpress.exe process in Task manager and close it. To get to Task manager right click on windows taskbar and choose "Start Task Manger". In the task manager window choose "Processes" tab. Look for RFXpress.exe, right click and choose "End Process tree". -Error in OFDM plug-in: For default settings in OFDM plugin under IQ mode, an error occurs while compiling for AWG 70000A series of instruments. The work around is to uncheck the "Automatic" check box in compile settings. Pre-requisite: - Microsoft .NET 4.0 runtime framework is required for RFXpress to execute. - Matlab Runtime 7.17 is required for RFXpress to execute. - AWG7000 software should be installed for RFXpress to recognize it - The Config utility has to be run and set to a model for RFXpress to recognize and configure the values based on the model. - TekVISA version 4.0.0.80 is needed to run Calibration, Import waveform from Oscilloscopes and communicate with AWG 70000A instrument. - RFXpress would communicate with AWG 7000/5000 software to transfer the waveforms after compiling. This functionality will work only if RFXpress is invoked after AWG 7000/5000 software has come up. Software Compatibility The following table shows the individual components of the Tektronix RFXpress Application Software and their version numbers. Also shown are the other major RFXpress software components that are external to the RFXpress Application Software (that are installed separately). Release 5.1 RFXpress Application SW 5.1 RFXpress Application 5.1.17.0 TekVisa 4.0.0.80 Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 Matlab Runtime 7.17 Where to get TekVISA? TekVISA compatible with RFXpress can be downloaded from the following link: www.tek.com To define the search criteria, use TekVISA in the search by Keyword field Where to get Microsoft .NET Framework? RFXpress will automatically install .Net4.0 if it is not present in the system. Where to get Matlab Runtime 7.17? RFXpress will automatically install Matlab runtime v7.17 if it is not present in the system. Installation Notes You need to have administrator privileges to install Tektronix RFXpress software in your system. The Installation program displays a warning message if you do not have administrator privileges. If you proceed by ignoring this warning, the application may not install properly. If you have not installed the required version of TekVISA RFXpress installation program will detect and prompt you to install them. If you want to reinstall your Tektronix RFXpress application software, you must first remove the existing software. You can uninstall the software by going to Control Panel > Add Remove Programs and selecting Tektronix RFXpress. If a failure occurs at any point during the installation of Tektronix RFXpress, the installer will not perform a complete uninstall. For this reason, it is important not to pre-maturely close the installer application by clicking on its close box in the upper-right corner of the background window; the installer will automatically close the background window. For details regarding the installation and use of RFXpress software, refer to the RFXpress Installation Manual.pdf file. Viewing Sample Files The installation program will copy several RFXpress sample files onto the target folder. You can open this folder through the shortcut menu Target folder\Samples. Under this folder there will be two sub folders namely Setup and Waveforms. The setup folder contains a few sample setup files for Generic signal and Wi-Media. The Waveforms folder contains a few sample waveform files from AWG, RTSA and Oscilloscope that can be opened in the RFXpress Application. Contacting Tektronix If you have any questions, please contact the Tektronix Technical Support Center: Phone 1-800-833-9200* Address Tektronix, Inc. 14200 SW Karl Braun Drive P.O. Box 500 Beaverton, OR, 97077 USA Web site www.tektronix.com Sales support 1-800-833-9200, select option 1* Service support 1-800-833-9200, select option 2* Technical Support Email: techsupport@tektronix.com 1-800-833-9200, select option 3* 6:00 a.m - 5:00 p.m. Pacific time --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * This number is toll free in North America. After office hours, please leave a voice mail message. 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