Stress Test of Vehicular Communication Transceivers Using Software Defined Radio

Wireless vehicular communication is, in contrast to other terrestrial types of wireless communications, more dynamic in nature. Both the transmitter and the receiver are moving at high speeds relative to each other, which generates highly dynamic wireless channels. Such channels are characterized by short stationarity regions and large Doppler spreads. Modem manufacturers face a challenge when designing and implementing equipment for such environments. Similarly, for testing and evaluation real-life measurements with vehicles are required, which often is an expensive and slow process. This paper tackles this problem by proposing a method for stress testing transceivers based on the design and implementation of a real-time wireless channel emulator for wireless vehicular communications using a software defined radio (SDR). The emulator together with the proposed test methodology enable quick on-bench evaluation of wireless modems. In the paper we also apply the test on two different IEEE 802.11p modem implementations and characterize the packet error rate performance for different Doppler-delay combinations.