Whether you are designing a new communications device or verifying its performance, you will need to make power measurements. Measuring the power of digitally modulated signals helps you maximize the capacity of a system and improve the quality of communication.

For broadband signals, typical power measurements include adjacent channel power (ACP), occupied bandwidth (OBW), harmonics, spurious emissions, spectrum emission mask (SEM), burst power, and the complementary cumulative distribution function (CCDF). When performed manually, these measurements can be very complicated and time-consuming because they are format-specific and must account for the increasingly complex multi-carrier nature of today’s digitally modulated signals.

All these power measurements come standard with Keysight’s X-Series signal analyzers. In this post, we’ll cover Adjacent Channel Power.

Adjacent Channel Power

A must-have for wireless communications, Adjacent Channel Power (ACP) measures the amount of interference, or power, in an adjacent frequency channel. It helps you ensure that signals are being effectively transmitted within their allocated spectral bandwidth and are not leaking into an adjacent channel where it may interfere with other signals.

With the multi-carrier signal environment, settings for ACP measurements should provide multiple offsets and associated integration bandwidths, which can be defined by the user or the selected radio standard. The ACP results are typically displayed as a bar graph or as spectrum data, with measurement data at specified offsets, as shown below

If the signal analyzer offers built-in noise-correction, the dynamic range of the ACP measurement can be automatically optimized.

Keysight’s X-Series signal analyzers perform simultaneous channel power and ACP measurements, which can be viewed in the multi-screen mode. Execute measurements with a streamlined menu structure, fewer keystrokes, and preset values for many cellular and wireless-connectivity standards.  Learn more about ACP and other power measurements on the PowerSuite webpage.