EVM and RSSI Link Quality Measurements in Frequency Selective Fading Channels

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss the suitability of error vector magnitude (EVM) and received signal strength indicator (RSSI) as wireless quality metrics. We evaluate these metrics in a software defined radio testbed and provide detailed measurement results for frequency selective fading channels. We show that EVM is well suited as a packet loss estimator and discuss a case where receiver implementation inefficiencies show up in the EVM.