Validating IEEE 802.16e Designs With The Mobile WiMAX MIMO Library

The IEEE 802.16e standard, often referred to as mobile WiMAX, specifies air interfaces for broadband wireless access (BWA) systems. The standard is expected to energize the BWA industry and open many opportunities to deploy systems in applications that were previously cost-prohibitive. Mobile WiMAX uses roaming and handoff to enable laptop and mobile phones to operate. High throughput is particularly important in the eyes of WiMAX service providers, because a selling point for both 3G and WiMAX is speed. Also, network capacity will have a major impact on operator economics. The 802.16e mobile WiMAX standard was approved in December 2005, and Agilent EEsof EDA released the 802.16e Mobile WiMAX Wireless Library in January 2006 for use with Agilent’s Advanced Design System (ADS) EDA software. Currently, Agilent has also released the 802.16e Mobile WiMAX MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) Wireless Library to help enable the emerging mobile WiMAX MIMO market to gear up for mobile wireless applications. MIMO technology addresses some of these issues by extending high throughput and improving network capacity. Despite these benefits, cost and power consumption will continue to be a challenge for designers -especially when they are trying to achieve optimal system performance. The ADS Mobile WiMAX MIMO Library enables system designers to validate their MIMO system within the confines of the latest spec of 802.16e-2005. For example, effects of channel environment on the packet error rate (PER) of the system are demonstrated.