TETRA conformance testing techniques

Abstract

Testing is essential for both the radio aspects and the protocol aspects of TETRA mobile and base station radio equipment. Different types of testing are required at the stages of R&D, conformance/type approval, manufacturing/commissioning and servicing. Testing for radio aspects has presented tough design challenges to TETRA equipment manufacturers and to test equipment manufacturers in achieving the required performance. Notable challenges are high dynamic range, low adjacent channel power, and accurate implementation of TETRA filtering. The radio conformance specifications, and the test equipment required, continue to evolve. Future radio testing requirements will include VHF operation, extended range, air-to-ground operation and on-channel repeaters. Testing for protocol aspects is of particular importance at the stages of R&D and conformance/type approval, since it is the software design being tested. TETRA radios include configuration for the intended user, group and network, which is confirmed using functional testing. Protocol conformance testing is specified using formal conformance test cases, which give a high degree of confidence but are time consuming to develop. A pragmatic solution at present is interoperability testing (IOP), in which mobile, infrastructure and test equipment from different manufacturers is tested against each other. (19 pages)