Automated Testing of Wireless Link Standards

摘要

With the increase of the wireless market, there is a trend to equip a hand held wireless device with all the features of a desktop. The wireless devices are becoming more and more integrated into our everyday lives. As these devices become less of a technology toy, and more of a necessity, we will find that our dependence on the correct operation and non-interference of the device rises to the level that errors or defects will not be tolerated readily.This means that the devices we will use in the future will not malfunction at all, which is not practical in engineering, or that the wireless devices developed will have to be extensively and rigorously tested. These tests have to follow a standard based approach. The ISO/ICE 18000 - Part 7 standard defines the air interface for radio-frequency identification (RFID) devices operating in the 433.92MHz Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) band used in item management applications. The test procedures are divided into two parts. Testing the interrogator (reader) and testing the tag (both active and passive).This thesis document explains the development of generalized test procedures to test a wireless RFID device, and for conformance to the ISO/ICE 18000 - Part 7 standard as a particular example. A brief description on how to configure and use the test procedures is also included. The test procedures were developed using Labview software, which is a versatile graphical programming language that can be used for programming hardware devices. The test procedures were developed so that they can be easily updated if the standard itself changes and also they can be modified to develop new test procedures for different standards.