Acterna LLC Patent applications |
Patent application number | Title | Published |
20130003565 | TESTING AN UPSTREAM PATH OF A CABLE NETWORK - An apparatus and method for testing an upstream path of a cable network are disclosed. The upstream path is tested by capturing and analyzing upstream data packets generated by a specific terminal device. A test instrument is connected at a node of the cable network. The test instrument establishes a communication session with the headend, informing the headend of an identifier of the device that will generate the test upstream data packet. The test upstream data packet is captured and analyzed at the headend, so that the results of the analysis can be communicated back to the test instrument. To speed up the packet capturing and filtering process, the upstream data packets can be pre-filtered based on packet duration and/or arrival time. | 01-03-2013 |
20120206611 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR VISUALIZING ERRORS IN VIDEO SIGNALS - Systems and methods for analyzing the performance of a digital network include capturing a stream of digital data, e.g., interne protocol (IP) packets, that represent streaming video, identifying which of the IP packets include bit errors, determining to which of a plurality of pixels the IP packets including bit errors belong and identifying such pixels as corrupted pixels, and illuminating only the corrupted pixels on a display of a tool. Corrupted pixels in different time blocks can be displayed with different colors to gain a better appreciation of the bit error rate over time. | 08-16-2012 |
20100087086 | Female Quick Connect Clip For Coaxial Cable - When connecting cable test equipment to standard F-connector style coax cables, a technician must use both hands to screw the cable under test into the test equipment or a test lead. In ideal conditions without gloves this is a rather simple task; however, a technician may have to repeat the procedure many times throughout a work day in extreme weather conditions, resulting in the technician having to repeatedly remove their gloves and expose their hands to the cold. A coaxial cable clip connector according to the present invention includes a smooth threadless connector, which fits into the cable under test, and an easily actuated clip, which fits over the coaxial cable connector housing to maintain a solid mechanical and electrical connection. | 04-08-2010 |
20100086015 | TEST DEVICE AND METHOD OF DETECTING AN IMBALANCE IN A POWER LEVEL OF A DIGITAL CHANNEL - The present invention provides a test device and a method enabling automatic detection of an imbalance in a power level of a digital channel. The test device includes an attenuator, a tuner, a demodulator, and an evaluation unit. According to the method, a plurality of channels are attenuated at a plurality of attenuation levels, by means of the attenuator. A digital channel is selected from the plurality of channels, by means of the tuner. A modulation error ratio (MER) of the digital channel is measured at the plurality of attenuation levels, by means of the demodulator. A variation of the MER of the digital channel with attenuation level is then evaluated, by means of the evaluation unit, to detect an imbalance in a power level of the digital channel. | 04-08-2010 |
20100070228 | DETECTING NONLINEARITY IN A CABLE PLANT AND DETERMINING A CABLE LENGTH TO A SOURCE OF THE NONLINEARITY - An apparatus and a method for detecting a nonlinearity in a cable plant and for determining cable length to a source of the nonlinearity are disclosed. Upstream signal peaks are detected by averaging upstream signal waveforms. The upstream signal peaks are generated at the source of the nonlinearity from naturally occurring downstream signal peaks propagating in the cable plant. The downstream signal peaks occur due to constructive superposition of the downstream channel signals. Acquisition of the upstream signal waveforms is triggered by the downstream signal peaks. The cable length to the source of nonlinearity is determined from a time delay between the downstream signal peaks and the upstream signal peaks. | 03-18-2010 |
20100014572 | TEST DEVICE AND METHOD OF DETECTING AN IMBALANCE IN A POWER LEVEL OF A CHANNEL - The present invention provides a test device and a method enabling automatic detection of an imbalance in a power level of a channel. The test device includes a tuner, a power-level measurement system, and an evaluation unit. According to the method, a test channel is selected from a plurality of channels, by means of the tuner. A power level of the test channel and a total power level of the plurality of channels are measured, by means of the power-level measurement system. A ratio of the total power level of the plurality of channels to the power level of the test channel is then evaluated, by means of the evaluation unit, to detect an imbalance in a power level of the test channel. | 01-21-2010 |
20090319838 | DETERMINING CONTRIBUTION OF BURST NOISE TO DATA ERRORS - A method for determining a contribution of burst noise to a bit error rate in a digital system for reception of an interleaved forward error correction-enabled digital symbol stream is described. The method is based on identifying errored symbols at a decoding stage, determining their positions in the interleaved stream, and performing a windowing operation such that the errored symbols located within the window in the interleaved stream are designated as burst errored symbols. A corresponding digital receiver and a digital transmission system are also disclosed. | 12-24-2009 |
20090316153 | DETERMINING IN-BAND OPTICAL SIGNAL-TO-NOISE RATIOS IN OPTICAL SIGNALS WITH TIME-VARYING POLARIZATION STATES USING POLARIZATION EXTINCTION - A method and apparatus for improving the accuracy of in-band OSNR measurements using a conventional polarization extinction or polarization-nulling method. In particular, the severe degradations of the polarization extinction that result from slow and fast polarization fluctuations in the optical signal components during the in-band OSNR measurement are substantially mitigated by rapidly and/or randomly changing the state of polarization prior to conventional polarization control and filtering. | 12-24-2009 |
20090315565 | ADAPTIVE PULSE WIDTH TIME DOMAIN REFLECTOMETER - An adaptive pulse width (APW) Time Domain Reflectometer (TDR) comprises an enhancement to the standard Pulse TDR by adjusting the effective pulse width as a function of time. Improved resolution for a large range of cable lengths is obtained, as well as allowing an all-in-one view of the processed return signal trace. | 12-24-2009 |
20090284264 | LOCATING A LOW-RESISTANCE FAULT IN AN ELECTRICAL CABLE - An inductance-based cable length-to-fault measurement device and method are described. The cable under test having a per-unit-length inductance is coupled to an inductance-sensitive oscillator, and the frequency of oscillations is evaluated using the following serially coupled modules: a comparator for digitizing the oscillator output, a pre-scaler for oscillation frequency down-conversion, and a microprocessor for counting pulses from the pre-scaler. To remove environmental and manufacturing tolerance dependencies, as well as a battery voltage dependence, the measured frequency of oscillations is compared to a frequency of oscillations of the oscillator having coupled thereto a reference inductor. | 11-19-2009 |
20090245117 | DETECTION OF NETWORK IMPAIRMENTS THROUGH TILT-NORMALIZED MEASUREMENT DATA - A method and apparatus are provided for detecting network impairments through tilt-normalized measurement data, the method including: collecting data for a network signal; computing a best-fit tilt for the collected data; performing tilt-normalization of the collected data responsive to the computed best-fit tilt; and determining whether the tilt-normalized data crosses a threshold, and if so, pattern matching the tilt-normalized data to detect a network impairment; and the apparatus including: an input unit for collecting data from a network signal; a tilt unit connected to the input unit for computing a best-fit tilt for the collected data and performing tilt-normalization of the collected data responsive to the computed best-fit tilt; and a pattern matching unit connected to the tilt unit for determining whether the tilt-normalized data crosses a threshold, and if so, pattern matching the tilt-normalized data to detect at least one network impairment. | 10-01-2009 |
20090185037 | MEASURING HUM IN A DIGITAL TV SIGNAL - The invention relates to a method for measuring Hum on a digital QAM carrier using a testing device for testing digital TV signals including a QAM demodulator therein, and to a testing device implementing the method. A micro-controller is used to sample a register associated with an AGC circuit in the QAM demodulator, and to process the collected register values to obtain one or more Hum characteristics. | 07-23-2009 |
20090135732 | Characterizing Home Wiring Via AD HOC Networking - The invention is a method of measuring the RF losses among home wiring endpoints using battery-powered “remotes” placed at each accessible endpoint in the home. The remotes use a low power, ad hoc networking technology, e.g. Zigbee, Z-wave, to connect to one another over the home wiring, rather than over the air via antennas as in typical applications of these technologies. | 05-28-2009 |
20090125960 | Dual Tuner Design Utilizing Only One Input Port On A Handheld Meter - A portable network test meter device for a CATV network is disclosed which permits simultaneous operation of a measurement system including a first tuner and a communication system including a cable modem including a second tuner. Only a single RF input/output port is necessary for connection to the CATV network. | 05-14-2009 |
20090123147 | Test Instrument For Testing Multi-Wavelength Optical Networks Using Two Or More Tunable Lasers - The present invention relates to test equipment (e.g. TBERD 8000) with two or more Tunable Lasers (TL) for testing the complete spectrum of a DWDM system. Diagnostic software is used to stepwise tune a TL to a specific wavelength under test and simultaneously insert one or more distortion wavelengths while executing bit error and impairment tests on the wavelength under test. Information from these tests is correlated to create a combined DWDM network test report. | 05-14-2009 |
20090096665 | Method For Locating Cable Impairments - Methods are disclosed for identifying and locating points of impairment in a cable plant, such as that used for cable television (CATV). The methods utilize both known characteristics of signals as well as propagation times in free space and within the cable in conjunction with accurate determination of locations at which measurements are taken. The methods can be applied to both RF cable leaks as well as points of ingress of interference. | 04-16-2009 |
20090089775 | Automated Software Upgrade And Distribution - A method for an automated upgrade of hardware devices of a specialized network, such as wireless communication devices or automated teller machines, with new software programs is described. The upgrade is performed over the network and is controlled by a control center of the network. The control center has an access to a software program repository for storing new programs. The automated upgrade is performed by selecting suitable new software programs from the repository, each of the programs being associated with a validity time window and a threshold hardware profile, performing corresponding checks of upgrade time windows and hardware profiles of the hardware devices being upgraded, and downloading the new software programs to the memory medium of the hardware devices being upgraded. | 04-02-2009 |
20090086804 | Automatic Gain Control Stress Measurement For Digital Carriers - The testing equipment of the present invention calculates a single “AGC stress” value, which provides an indication of the stability of the level of a digital carrier based on the change in gain required to stabilize the power of an incoming cable signal over time. Ideally the AGC stress value is rated on a scale, e.g. 1 to 10 or 0 to 5, and is fed into the DQI measurement system as a new data model. | 04-02-2009 |
20090086028 | CATV Digital Receiver Intermodulation Susceptibility Tester - A method and apparatus are provided for testing susceptibility of a receiver to intermodulation distortion of a digital channel, the method including selecting a first digital channel from channels in a composite signal, determining a first power measurement from the first digital channel, determining a total power measurement from other channels in the composite signal, and determining susceptibility of the first digital channel to intermodulation distortion by comparing the first power measurement and the total power measurement with intermodulation distortion characteristics of the receiver. | 04-02-2009 |
20090046590 | Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) Testing - A method and apparatus for testing a VoIP telephone line are provided, the method including determining which of a plurality of VoIP call control protocols and/or CODECs is compatible with the telephone line, and conducting a series of tests on the telephone line in accordance therewith. The method and apparatus also includes steps and the means to connect to a network and capturing a stream of data therefrom to determine configuration settings of a VoIP telephone connected thereto to facilitate the previous testing. | 02-19-2009 |
20090034596 | Ethernet Traffic Emulation Using Ramped Traffic Generation Techniques - The invention relates to a testing system for generating a plurality of independently controllable streams of Ethernet frames, e.g. voice, data and video, in which the bandwidth utilization thereof can be held constant or ramped up to test the effects thereof on the other streams. | 02-05-2009 |
20090022067 | Cable ID Using RFID Devices - The present invention relates to the use of RFID technology to identify specific cables in a bundle, and in particular to a cable identification device in which RFID devices are connected to the far end of a plurality of cables and splitters, and an RF measurement device is used to identify each cable from the central location. The RF measurement device provides the AC RF electrical signal power required to pass through the at least one AC couple splitter to operate the plurality of RFID devices, and includes means to identify the unique identification numbers associated with the plurality of coaxial cables from the plurality of identification signals received simultaneously. | 01-22-2009 |
20090013398 | Remote Testing Of Firewalled Networks - The present invention enables flexible deployment of testing agents within a firewalled network without the concern of needing to change security policies on routers and switches inside the firewalled network. Accordingly, remote diagnostic testing of networks and network devices can be conducted in which the firewalled network security is maintained and not compromised. The long-term diagnostic monitoring of networks is possible including an evolvable solution in which remote upgrades of the application agents are utilized. | 01-08-2009 |
20080298270 | Upstream Signal Quality Monitoring - The problem is that a measurement of the average signal quality (average modulation error ratio), does not identify poor quality signals that may be originating from an individual cable modem. The device of the present invention displays the modulation error ratio (MER) for each packet received. Since the media access control (MAC) address is associated with a packet received from an individual cable modem, a graph displaying the MER for each packet received is also displaying the MER for signals from the individual cable modems. Thus a technician viewing the display will be able to identify whether a low MER is a result of an impairment in the network or the from an individual cable modem. | 12-04-2008 |
20080285242 | Isolating Stress On A Printed Circuit Board - Printed circuit boards (PCB's) with edge connectors undergo bending stresses whenever the edge connectors are plugged into mating connectors. The bending stresses causes deformation of the printed circuit board, which can have deleterious effects on electrical components thereon. Slots are provided on the PCB to enable the portion of the PCB surrounding the edge connector to bend relative to the remainder of the PCB, thereby confine the bending to a localized area between the ends of the slots, and isolate the electrical components from any stresses caused thereby. | 11-20-2008 |
20080219335 | Remote Access Integrated Tester - In conventional testing, the user is using an on-hand computing device to control testing; however, for the present invention the user is at the access point and the computer is remote, e.g. nearby or in the technician's vehicle, and not being used by the user to run the tests. The present invention provides a means to conveniently connect a customer provided network access device, e.g. a USB “dongle” modem, via a wireless link to the remote computer, which is providing the test application. The computer is remote, and the remote module device extends the reach of the commercial dongle modem so it is not necessary to carry the computer to the test access point. | 09-11-2008 |