The academy won't hand out its Oscars for another couple of weeks, but Frost & Sullivan has already named its 2007 Product Innovation of the Year Award for Wi-Fi Test & Measurement. And the award goes to: Azimuth Systems Inc. for its ACE 400NB MIMO channel emulator. The fully automated tester for multiple-input, multiple output devices features built-in support for the six real-time channel models recommended by the IEEE 802.11n working group for typical Wi-Fi scenarios in order to enable performance comparisons. The test system offers complete rf isolation and control to ensure fast, accurate, and repeatable results. According to Azimuth Systems, it is increasingly being used for single-input, single-output (SISO) system performance evaluation also, since the platform can be used with both current 802.11a/b/g devices and future 802.11n devices.

"Azimuth Systems has continually developed products that address the growing need to more efficiently test mobile devices, and its innovation is applauded by Frost & Sullivan with this award," said Narendran Vaideeswaran, analyst with Frost & Sullivan, a business research and consulting firm. "An important reason the ACE system was chosen as a 2007 Product Innovation is its unique feature that allows vendors to measure the performance of products based on the not-yet-ratified 802.11n standard against real-world impairments, in a completely automated test solution." For more on Frost & Sullivan's Best Practices Awards, go to www.awards.frost.com.