Industry Summary Articles

octoScope today introduced the latest addition to the octoBox® product line, the compact, stackable, and rackable BOX-18 test chamber. Like all octoBox models, BOX-18 provisions an optimal environment for isolated over-the-air (OTA) testing. With 16 RF connectors (8 on each side) addressing even advanced MIMO configurations, BOX-18 is ideal for testing and evaluating the performance of a wide variety of wireless mesh and Internet of Things (IoT) topologies, including Wi-Fi extenders, handoff behavior, load balancing, and performance optimization.

Measuring only 18 inches wide by 12 inches high by 29 inches deep and fully rack-mountable, BOX-18 is ideal for high-density, compact installations where each individual device under test (DUT) requires its own isolated environment. This is particularly important in mesh, IoT, and similar test situations, where collocating devices in a single larger chamber could result in mutual interference. BOX-18 makes it easy to customize test configurations, and to modify these with minimal effort. BOX-18 is thus ideal for a broad range of wireless testing scenarios, with complete interoperability with the larger BOX-26 and BOX-38 octoBox models and the remainder of the octoScope product line, including the quadAtten® programmable attenuator, iGenTM interference generator, Pal® client and AP emulators, monitors, load generators, MPE2 multipath emulator, and a broad array of test and analysis software. octoScope provides the most robust and capable wireless testing solutions available today. BOX-18 enables flexible new testbed topologies for product developers, manufacturers, and carriers and operators everywhere.

Benefits of Complete Environmental isolation 
It’s nearly impossible to test and evaluate wireless devices in open-air, “freespace” settings, especially in the unlicensed bands used by Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and many other products. Radio-wave propagation cannot be controlled, or even predicted, and interference is always a concern.

The octoBox product line provisions complete isolation from the unmanageable real world, creating a controlled and repeatable environment that enables level-playing-field comparisons, precise reproducibility, and productivity-optimizing ease of use. Such common tests as throughput vs. range, throughput vs. orientation, throughput vs. interference, channel- and rate-adaptation behavior, error-rate analysis, and many more are made easy via the octoBox and other members of the octoScope product family.

BOX-18 provides the same broad set of capabilities and benefits as the other members of the octoBox family. Standard features include complete isolation from outside interference, filtered ventilation and filtered data and power ports, and a replaceable door gasket. The octoBox is effective across a very board range frequencies, from 700 MHz. to 6 GHz.

“We’ve been testing wireless products for more than two decades, and the octoBox has dramatically improved both our productivity and the accuracy of our results,” said Craig Mathias of the wireless and mobile advisory firm Farpoint Group. “BOX-18’s compact size means we can configure tests of meaningful scale in minimal physical space, especially important when examining the behavior of mesh and IoT products.”

To view the original press release, please click here.

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