octoScope intros smartphone industry’s first small form factor over-the-air (OTA) test platform

MARLBORO, USA: octoScope Inc., a wireless solutions and services company, announced its wireless testing product, octoBox.

octoBox revolutionizes the way multi-radio devices such as smartphones and USB dongles are designed, tested and verified. It offers accurate OTA testing of conventional and MIMO wireless devices in a customizable refrigerator sized anechoic (non-echoing) enclosure that replaces expensive walk-in anechoic chambers and facilitates test setup.

Offering repeatable and accurate test and validation methodology, octoBox cuts development and production costs for multi-mode wireless devices and speeds up time to market by several months.

“Our goal in launching octoBox is to enable OEMs to efficiently test smartphones and other such wireless devices fully assembled with their antennas,” said Fanny Mlinarsky, president of octoScope. “Our engineers have miniaturized a typical OTA test setup into a compact self-contained solution. octoBox provides stable and controlled measurements that reduce development and test time while increasing test coverage and product reliability. For fast production, octoBox supports simultaneous testing of up to eight small devices, such as smartphones, and simultaneous testing of multiple radios in a single device.”

“High-function test equipment that keeps pace with the requirements of the rapidly-evolving wireless landscape is essential,” said Craig Mathias, a Principal with the wireless and mobile advisory firm Farpoint Group. “octoScope is meeting this challenge with a compact and cost-effective solution to the OTA testing of contemporary MIMO-based products. The octoBox is an exciting development that promises more reliable and robust products developed and brought to market faster than ever before possible.”

As the world becomes more connected, multiple radios (2G/3G, LTE, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS) are incorporated into a variety of products. Devices such as smartphones and pads with multiple integrated antennas require rigorous OTA testing. octoBox enables OTA testing with the accuracy and repeatability of conducted testing.

Existing solutions are either too small to accommodate far-field conditions that make OTA testing accurate or too large, rendering them impractical for production and burdensome for R&D. The octoBox test platform offers OTA test stability and repeatability in an optimum form factor that fits easily in a production lab or an engineer’s office. A single octoBox enables simultaneous parallel testing of eight or more fully assembled smartphones through their antennas in an area no larger than a typical desk.

With the advent of LTE, multimode wireless devices (smartphones, USB dongles, CPEs) have become increasingly complex especially when it comes to the number of supported standards (4G/3G/2G Broadband, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS) and associated frequencies, which need to be tested, verified and validated.

octoBox enables seamless RF technology validation during development cycles and production in a compact, customizable form factor and provides stable far-field conditions with advantages for OTA measurement accuracy, sensitivity and repeatability. Its dual-chamber architecture, allows test instrumentation and the DUT to reside in the same enclosure, as a complete self-contained test station isolated from the interference of neighboring stations.

In addition to measuring a DUT’s 3D antenna pattern, octoBox can integrate test equipment, including a MIMO channel emulator, interference generators, RF sensors, data monitors and other instruments. It supports a wide frequency range from 700 MHz to 6 GHz and can be used for testing multi-radio smartphones, with radios that include cellular, 3G/4G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS, all operating in different regions of the spectrum.