Evaluating Time Occupancy and Time-Scales in Interference Testing with Pulse-Modulated Noise

Published

April 14, 2025

Author(s)

Michelle Pirrone, Aric Sanders, Adam Wunderlich

Abstract

We present experimental results investigating the utility of pulse-modulated noise (PMN) for general-purpose, systematic interference testing. Time-domain interference vulnerabilities are examined by modifying the PMN duty cycle, which controls time occupancy, and the PMN period, which modifies the time-scale. The PMN waveform class that we utilize depends on only two parameters, making it far simpler than real-world communication signals and easier to generate. We perform experimentation with a conducted interference testbed that uses a consumer off-the-shelf IEEE 802.11n wireless local area network Wi-Fi link as the victim system. Comparisons are also made between PMN and measured long-term evolution (LTE) and Wi-Fi signals of corresponding time occupancies to assess if realistic interference impacts are generated by PMN. We find that time occupancy is a strong predictor of interference impacts, but that time-scale and time correlations can also be relevant factors in some circumstances. Overall, our findings support PMN as a useful class of artificial test waveforms for interference testing that can be used to characterize a wide range of interference vulnerabilities on a bidirectional communication link.

Citation

IEEE Transactions on Electromagnetic Compatibility

Volume

67

Issue

4

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1109/TEMC.2025.3552044

Local Download

Keywords

Interference immunity testing, wireless communications, test methods, time structure, Wi-Fi, WLAN, electromagnetic interference (EMI)

Citation

Pirrone, M. , Sanders, A. and Wunderlich, A. (2025), Evaluating Time Occupancy and Time-Scales in Interference Testing with Pulse-Modulated Noise, IEEE Transactions on Electromagnetic Compatibility, [online], https://doi.org/10.1109/TEMC.2025.3552044, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=959124 (Accessed October 27, 2025)