Impairment simulation for network communication to enable voice quality degradation estimation
AssigneeAnritsu Corporation
InventorsJheroen Pieter Dorenbosch, Zachry Shay Collins
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An automated method for testing audio signal quality of cell phone transmissions provides a Mean Opinion Score (MOS) output using inexpensive test components. The test system uses a server computer to eliminate the need for expensive faders used in a bench test system. The server computer manipulates data packets from the reference media file to simulate impairments, including losses, errors, noise and jitter, at a much lower cost than using actual faders. Transmission through two separate radio access networks RANs is provided to simulate two parties communicating using separate mobile devices (an end-to-end test solution) with a single cell phone.
Claims27
A method to estimate media quality degradation resulting from wireless transmission to a device under test (DUT) to thereby characterize performance of the DUT, the method comprising:
- encoding a reference media signal into a stream of packets;
- imposing first simulated impairments to individual packets in the stream of packets to simulate degradation that could result from a first wireless transmission of the stream of packets over an interface with a peer media device;
- wherein the first simulated impairments simulate degradation resulting from wireless transmission over a first radio access network (RAN);
- transmitting the stream of packets over a radio frequency (RF) link;
- receiving the stream of packets at the DUT;
- capturing a degraded media signal derived from the stream of packets via the DUT;
- analyzing the degraded media signal to estimate the media quality degradation and
- characterizing the performance of the DUT by repeating the steps of encoding, imposing, transmitting, receiving, capturing and analyzing for a plurality of different simulated impairments.
An apparatus comprising:
- a server computer for providing a reference media signal, for encoding the reference media signal into a stream of packets, and for providing first impairments to packets in the stream of packets to simulate degradation that could result from a first wireless transmission of the stream of packets to create an impaired packet output signal at an output;
- wherein the first impairments simulate degradation resulting from wireless transmission over a first radio access network (RAN);
- a signaling tester coupled to the server computer for receiving the impaired packet output signal from the output of the server computer and transmitting the impaired output signal over a radio frequency (RF) link to a device under test (DUT);
- wherein the server computer is further configured for receiving a media output signal from the DUT created from the impaired packet output signal, converting the media output signal to provide a degraded media signal;
- wherein the server computer is further configured for analyzing the degraded media signal to provide an estimated amount of degradation in media quality;
- and
- wherein the server computer is further configured for characterizing the performance of the DUT by obtaining degraded media signals for a plurality of different impairments.
An apparatus comprising:
- a server computer for providing a reference media signal to a device under test (DUT), for obtaining a stream of packets at an input, for providing first impairments to packets in the stream to simulate degradation that could result from a first wireless transmission of the stream to create an impaired stream of packets, and for capturing the impaired stream of packets to provide a degraded media signal;
- wherein the first impairments simulate degradation resulting from wireless transmission over a first radio access network (RAN);
- a signaling tester coupled to the server computer for receiving the stream of packets from the DUT over a radio frequency (RF) link, and for transmitting the stream of packets to the input of the server computer;
- and
- wherein the server computer is further configured for analyzing the degraded media signal to provide an estimated amount of degradation in media quality;
- and
- wherein the server computer is further configured for characterizing the performance of the DUT by obtaining degraded media signals for a plurality of different impairments.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.