A Reference Model for Channel Sounder Performance Evaluation, Validation and Comparison

In this paper, we propose a detailed generic reference plane model for performance evaluation and system validation of radio channel sounders. It allows to abstractly describe a broad variety of channel sounder implementations and architectures in a common framework, thus facilitating systematic evaluations and comparisons. To illustrate the utility of the concept, we present the mapping of two practical channel sounder realizations—one time domain and one frequency domain—to the model, along with selected performance metrics defined on its reference planes. For the two presented channel sounders, we give measurement examples for these metrics.