ACT-IR3200SW User’s Manual
The Wireless Connectivity Expert
9) BER TEST
FFS (Far Field Source), NFS (Near Field Source) test.
A) PRESCRIPTION:
• The device under test (DUT) can be either a Primary or a Secondary Station. But
during the test, the DUT always plays the Secondary role.
• The DUT will use its native IrDA hardware and native IrDA driver stack, which
implemented the Test Frame
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in IrLAP as specified in the IrDA Protocol Spec. No
special test software is necessary during the test at the DUT side.
• The Tester (Test Reference station) is a PC with IrDA hardware of controlled IR
emission intensity (e.g. ACTiSYS IR2000B/L) and a special test software (e.g.
ACTiSYS ACT-IR9003SW), but not stack testing. Tester always plays Primary role.
• The BER test at low speed is most time costly. Practically communication failures
happen mostly at higher speed and the speed 9600 is the common speed at NRM
for discovery and negotiation. To accelerate the BER test we will reduce the test bit-
amount of 9.6k and 38.4k test from 10 MBITS to 1 MBITS.
• We check the working range (distance at different angle) of transmission by the
Intensity measurement and Sensitivity tests. So the BER test will be done only at
angle 0°. This is also for accelerate the IrDA compliant test and will provide us with
the some information we need.
• NFS (Near Field Source) Test
Measure the BER with a strong signal source at near distance.
Signal strength: 500mW/cm² according to IrDA Physical spec.
Irradiance = 500mW/cm² using source 590mW/Sr at 1.1cm to test all speeds
• MFS (Mid Field Source) Test
Measure the BER with a normal transceiver at medium distance. This may reflect
the normal application condition.
Signal strength: ~175uW/cm²
Irradiance = 175uW/cm² using source 152mW/Sr at 30cm to test all speeds
• FFS (Far Field Source) Test
Measure the BER with a weak signal source at far distance.
Signal strength: 10µW/cm² to test FIR (4M) and MIR (1.152M)
4µW/cm² to test SIR (9600 - 115.2K)
The irradiance of this DUT is about 100mW/Sr. The irradiance of reference
should be weaker than it so we can focus attention only on the DUT side.
a) Irradiance = 10µW/cm² using source 27mW/Sr at 52cm to test 4M & 1.152M
bps
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ACTiSYS IrDA Test Frame and Free Source Code (www.actisys.com/CompTest.html)
Copyright 2004-2005 ACTiSYS Corp. Page 21 of 24 July 12
th
, 2005
Version 1.2