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May/June 2014 european business press engineeringengineering europeeurope Test & Measurement Antennas www.mwee.com The European journal for the microwave and wireless design engineer 130204_FRSH_MW_EU_Snipe.indd 1 1/30/13 10:49 AM Missing a Pulse Can Be Deadly. The Smartest, Fastest and Only Real-Time USB Peak Power Sensor. Don’t fall victim to conventional power measurement • Real-Time Power Processing™ for gap-free analysis techniques that will leave you missing valuable data • 100 MSa/sec SUSTAINED sample rate is world’s fastest - we capture every pulse with no missed glitches. • 10 GSa/sec effective rate for superb waveform fidelity The new 55 Series delivers unsurpassed speed and • <5 ns risetime and 70+ MHz video bandwidth accuracy for the most demanding RF power mea- • 100 ps time resolution for enhanced trigger stability surements thanks to Boonton’s Real-Time Power Processing™ technology. With this revolutionary • Triggered acquisition speeds over 40,000 sweeps/sec technique, all processing steps take place in parallel, • Capture and analyze data more than 100x faster guaranteeing gap-free signal acquisition and reliable than conventional power sensors capture of all transients, dropouts or interference. For more information visit us at boonton.com or call +1 973-386-9696. The new Boonton 55 Series delivers real results no one else can see. Taking Performance to a New Peak. Watch measurements come alive with Real-Time Power Processing™ Boonton 140131_TOPB_MWE_EU.indd 1 1/27/14 11:36 AM Missing a Pulse Can Be Deadly. The Smartest, Fastest and Only Real-Time USB Peak Power Sensor. Don’t fall victim to conventional power measurement • Real-Time Power Processing™ for gap-free analysis techniques that will leave you missing valuable data • 100 MSa/sec SUSTAINED sample rate is world’s fastest - we capture every pulse with no missed glitches. • 10 GSa/sec effective rate for superb waveform fidelity The new 55 Series delivers unsurpassed speed and • <5 ns risetime and 70+ MHz video bandwidth accuracy for the most demanding RF power mea- • 100 ps time resolution for enhanced trigger stability surements thanks to Boonton’s Real-Time Power Processing™ technology. With this revolutionary • Triggered acquisition speeds over 40,000 sweeps/sec technique, all processing steps take place in parallel, • Capture and analyze data more than 100x faster guaranteeing gap-free signal acquisition and reliable than conventional power sensors capture of all transients, dropouts or interference. For more information visit us at boonton.com or call +1 973-386-9696. The new Boonton 55 Series delivers real results no one else can see. Taking Performance to a New Peak. Watch measurements come alive with Real-Time Power Processing™ Boonton 140131_TOPB_MWE_EU.indd 1 1/27/14 11:36 AM Contents Editor In Chief Jean-Pierre Joosting Tel. +44-7800 548-133 engineering europe email: [email protected] engineering europe Advertising Production Lydia Gijsegom Tel +32 (0) 2 740 00 50 email: [email protected] 5 6 Circulation & Finance Luc Desimpel Comment News Tel +32 (0) 2 740 0055 email: [email protected] Software defined mobile Startup uses Art Manager networks come of age ultrasound for Jean-Paul Speliers low energy Tel +32 (0)2 740 0052 gesture recognition email: [email protected] Accounting OpenBTS 4.0 enables drive Ricardo Pinto Ferreira Tel +32 (0)2 740 0051 to commercial open-source email: [email protected] cellular systems Publisher Andre Rousselot Tel +32 (0)2 740 0053 email: [email protected] 10/14 17/18 European Business Press SA 7 Avenue Reine Astrid T&M: Satellite communica- Antennas: Broadband lens 1310 La Hulpe - Belgium Tel: +32 (0)2 740 00 50 tions power measurement may lead to antenna dishes Fax: +32 (0)2 740 00 59 using USB power sensors that are flat or conform to www.microwave-eetimes.com any surface VAT Registration: BE 461.357.437 T&M: Interference in a RPM: Nivelles Company Number: 0461357437 crowded RF spectrum: Trends in why it occurs, the smart © 2014 E.B.P. SA and what to card • All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or do about it payment transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without the express prior written consent of the publisher. 21/22 20 • The contents of Microwave Engineering Europe are subject to reproduction in information storage and retrieval Products systems. Electrostatic • Microwave Engineering Europe is touch for published ten times a year. Apply for a VNA delivers up smartphones free copy of the journal online at www. to 24 integrated microwave-eetimes.com/subscribe • Subscriptions: Microwave Engineering test ports Europe is available on subscription to others at 150 Euro. Refunds on Products cancelled subscriptions will only be Broadband provided at the Publisher’s discretion, unless specifically guaranteed within Analogue network the terms of the subscription offer. front end for analyzer hits Paid subscription queries tel: +32 2 740 00 50 digital radios 145 GHz • Printed by Corelio 4 Microwave Engineering Europe May-June 2014 www.microwave-eetimes.com News — Comment Software defined mobile networks come of age While the high profile technology com- cations; large private networks, based on panies such as Google and Facebook VoIP; public networks, based on an SS7 look towards solar powered high altitude core; or mixed 2G/4G networks, based drones and hot air balloons to bring WiFi on an IMS core. to the unconnected world, Legba and YateBTS is built from the OpenBTS® bladeRF creator Nuand have formed a L1 PHY, L2 link layer and L3 radio re- partnership to expand traditional mobile source manager, with upper L3 and GSM networks to bring affordable mobile net- implemented in Yate. This architecture work access to the 3.5 billion people who offers many advantages over the original currently are without any connectivity. OpenBTS® design, including dramatically The problem with the hype surround- improved stability and direct support for ing drones and balloons is that as with all the all of the protocols already supported emerging technology they are not ready to by Yate, including SS7/MAP, SIP/IMS, be deployed and the costs have not been MGCP, XMPP, H.323, IAX, and ISDN. quantified. One reason most of the world Yate (Yet Another Telephony Engine) is not connected is that mobile compa- is a next-generation telephony engine; nies do not currently find it economically while currently focused on Voice over feasible. In other words, most people in Internet Protocol (VoIP) and PSTN, it can uses Lime’s field programmable RF this category do not have enough dispos- be easily extended. Voice, video, data transceiver to deliver a simple, high per- able income to warrant attention from the and instant messenging can all be unified formance and low cost software defined mainstream mobile operators or they live under Yate’s flexible routing engine. The radio board. Basically bladeRF is a high in remote areas. Do the same economic software is written in C++ and it supports quality, low-cost software defined radio principles apply to Facebook and Google scripting in various programming lan- capable of capturing 40 MHz 12-bit full and ultimately their advertisers? guages (such as those supported by the duplex quadrature samples in realtime. Maybe the answer lies more with tried currently implemented PHP, Python and The partnership among Legba, Nuand and tested technology, but at a lower Perl libraries) and even any Unix shell. and Lime Microsystems proves traditional cost than has been previously possible. Nuand’s software defined radio mobile networks can be expanded and This is essentially what Legba and Nuand technology builds on proven military made more affordable. are attempting. The partnership brings implementations of such technology and together Legba’s open source software seeks to bring affordable mobile network www.leg.ba for 2.5G networks with Nuand’s software access to the 3.5 billion people who cur- www.nuand.com defined radio, based on Lime Microsys- rently are without any connectivity. www.limemicro.com tems’ fully programmable RF transceiver The bladeRF board has an entirely http://openbts.org technology. This combination is desig- programmable FPGA and a large com- http://yate.ro/pmwiki nated YateBTS 3.0. munity of developers. It suits both hob- YateBTS is an all-software implemen- byists and professionals in exploring and tation of a complete 2.5G network. It can experimenting with the multidisciplinary By Jean-Pierre Joosting be used for network in a box (NIB) appli- facets of RF communication. The board Editor: Microwave Engineering Europe Most smartphones to be vendor reference designs The emergence of reference design pro- ferentiation. However, fierce competi- points, making the smartphone market grammes by chipset suppliers such as tion from small vendors is now forcing increasingly commoditized,” comment- MediaTek, Qualcomm, and Spreadtrum tier-one OEMs to change their strategy ed Malik Saadi practice director at ABI have greatly helped small vendors, nota- and consider using third party reference Research. bly in China and India to compete in the designs, essentially in the cost-sensitive By 2019, more than two-thirds of lowest tier of the smartphone market. segments of the market (sub-$200). smartphone shipments will be based According to ABI Research more than Nokia, Samsung, HTC, LG, Huawei, and on chipset suppliers’ reference designs, one-third of smartphones shipped in ZTE have already started to use this ap- totaling more than 1.18 billion units, of 2013 were attached to reference de- proach, mainly for products targeted at which 23% are targeted at wholesale signs supplied by key chipset vendors, emerging markets. prices higher than $200.