Measuring the physical layer performance of wireless communication systems: Part 33 in a series of tutorials on instrumentation and measurement

Abstract

Measuring the physical layer performance of wireless radio communication systems is one important step in clearly understanding their behavior in real-world, that is, non-simulation, environments. Unfortunately, measurements in wireless communications are extremely expensive and time-consuming. In fact, they require researchers to deal with nonartificial, realizable, real-world problems. They also require these researchers to have experience in computer engineering, telecommunication engineering, electrical engineering and often even mechanical engineering. Finally, they require teamwork to set up complete systems instead of dealing with single, isolated, numerical environments.