Continuous, Gapless Capture of Signals up to 100 MHz Bandwidth

15 September 2011 – Agilent Technologies announced the availability of superior streaming capability for the M9392A PXI vector signal analyzer and M9202A digitizer, providing the industry’s highest bandwidth, PXI-based, continuous data capture (up to 100 MHz bandwidth) to a RAID storage solution.

Data streaming over long durations enables customers to capture, detect and analyze signals of interest from their measurement environment. The new data capture solution allows customers to use the Agilent 89600B vector signal analysis software to characterize complex, time-varying signals or a customer-developed data analysis tool.

Specifically designed for continuous, gapless data capture of wideband signals for post-capture analysis, the M9392A and M9202A streaming capabilities are ideal for customers requiring up to 100 MHz of measurement bandwidth for frequencies up to 26.5 GHz. Data capture can occur either directly to the embedded or external controller for short-duration capture of a few seconds, or to a RAID for long-duration capture lasting from several minutes to greater than 13 hours, depending on the storage size of the RAID and the desired measurement bandwidth.

For long-duration data capture applications, Agilent has teamed with JMR Electronics, an industry leader in data storage, to provide several different RAID storage solutions that guarantee the sustained data rates necessary for 100 MHz of IQ bandwidth. The storage solution is based upon JMR’s BlueStor product line.

“We have been working with Agilent to provide a high-performance PCIe direct-attached RAID device to complement their state-of-the art instrumentation, and we’re very pleased to have such an excellent technology partner,” said Steve Katz, vice president, OEM Sales for JMR. The configurations use either HDD or SSD drives, depending on the end user’s application requirements.

“The new streaming solution provides customers with capabilities not previously available in this market,” said Carla Feldman, marketing manager for Agilent’s Modular Product Operation. “We developed the streaming capabilities to address our customers’ requirements to provide a streaming interface for gapless capture, especially for broadband communications and radar applications and for customers requiring wideband recording capability.”