A Formal Quality Control System for Millimetre-Wave Channel Sounder Verification

Various hardware and software defects may distort or impair the channel-measurement data produced by millimetre-wave channel sounders. The IEEE Standard Association’s P2982 standards development effort was begun with the understanding that the ad hoc and incomplete verification methods in common use today are inadequate for the task and a consensus-based approach is the best method to achieve methods that are complete, effective, and economical and which will be widely accepted and adopted. Past efforts have focused on identifying discrepancies between actual and expected channel responses, but have not incorporated these processes into a formal quality control system. Here, we show how formal quality control can be incorporated into the P2982 vison for millimetre-wave channel sounder verification and thereby: 1) allow more effective identification and correction of shortcomings in channel sounder performance and/or post-processing techniques, 2) give greater confidence that a given set of channel measurement data is suitable for inclusion in a pooled database, and 3) align more closely with metrology practices in other disciplines.