ESG-SignalCreator

📦 Downloads: latest stable release · latest prerelease (newest build off main)

A Windows desktop application — ESG Signal Studio — for driving Agilent/Keysight ESG-series RF signal generators (e.g. the E4438C, E4400-series). It builds baseband I/Q waveforms on the PC, previews and validates them, and downloads them to the instrument's dual ARB player over a deliberate Calculate → Download → Play pipeline. It is a modern reimplementation of the legacy Signal Studio for E4438C (see the requirement docs in docs/).

Built with C# / WinForms targeting .NET Framework 4.7.2, split into a UI-free core library, the WinForms app, and an xUnit test project.

Documentation: User Guide (a complete reference for every feature) · Tutorials (21 hands-on walkthroughs, simple → complex) · Manual Verification (step-by-step bench check with a VSA settings checklist) · Packaging (installer + release build). 🌐 Dansk: Brugervejledning · Tutorials · Manuel verifikation.

📝 Docs parity: English is authoritative; the Danish set under docs/da/ is a machine translation kept in parity. When you change an English document, update its Danish counterpart (and add one if the English doc is new).

🔄 Tutorial images are generated, not hand-grabbed. The signal-tutorial analyzer screenshots (docs/images/tutorials/*-n9010a.png) are real N9010A captures from HilHarness --tutorial-captures <dir> (#150); the two views the analyzer can't draw (QPSK constellation/eye) come from the app renderer ESG-SignalCreator.exe --tutorial-images <dir>; app-UI screenshots for the workflow tutorials come from ESG-SignalCreator.exe --tutorial-ui-images <dir>; verification screenshots (docs/images/vsa/) come from HilHarness --install-verify --capture-dir (#143). When a tutorial changes, update the relevant harness and regenerate the affected images in the same change. (E4406A captures coming soon.)

Features

• Signal-flow shell — a top action bar, a left project tree, a signal-flow block canvas (Source → … → Output), a personality picker with a live configuration panel, and a right dock of up to three verification plots.
• Signal personalities — pluggable sources that produce normalized I/Q:
  • CW / single tone (frequency-offset, seamless-looping)
  • Multitone (tone table, auto-spacing, random/equal/Newman phasing, live PAPR)
  • Multitone Distortion (IMD/NPR stimulus: up to 4097 tones, phase presets, clearable NPR notch, per-tone magnitude/phase tables, in-band pre-distortion correction — N7621B v2)
  • Multi-Carrier (composite of several carriers, each with its own modulation and frequency offset — multi-channel / multi-standard test scenarios)
  • Custom digital modulation (BPSK/QPSK/8PSK/16–256-QAM/MSK, PN9/15/23 data, RRC/RC/Gaussian pulse shaping)
  • Pulse Building (radar-style pulse train: PRI/width, raised-cosine edges, intra-pulse LFM/NLFM chirp, FM/AM step, BPSK/QPSK/Barker/Frank/P4 codes, per-pulse frequency/phase/power offsets, staggered/jittered PRI, markers — N7620A v2)
  • Jitter Injection (jittered clock: periodic sinusoidal/square/triangle/saw/exp/custom
    • Gaussian random + composite jitter, SJ frequency sweep with tolerance masks (custom + approx. ITU-T G.8251), range enforcement, in UI — E4438C-SP1 v2)
  • AWGN (band-limited Gaussian noise with crest-factor clipping)
  • Import I/Q (CSV/TSV, raw interleaved int16, Agilent/Keysight big-endian int16 & 14-bit, WAV, MATLAB Level-5 .mat incl. compressed, plus marker/trigger authoring — the N7622A Toolkit "bring your own I/Q" role, v2)
  • Standards personalities (v1 cores derived from the legacy Signal Studio catalogue — see docs/signal-creation-software/): GSM/EDGE (GMSK + v2 EDGE 8-PSK — N7602B), Bluetooth (GFSK + v2 EDR π/4-DQPSK/8-DPSK — N7606B), 3GPP W-CDMA FDD (OVSF-spread QPSK; v2 optional multi-code composite — N7600B), W-CDMA HSPA (16QAM HS-PDSCH; v2 optional multicode — E4438C-419), 3GPP2 CDMA (cdma2000; v2 optional multi-code — N7601B), TD-SCDMA (1.28 Mcps; v2 optional multi-code — N7612B), 3GPP LTE FDD (OFDM, 1.4–20 MHz; v2 optional E-UTRA frame — PSS/SSS/CRS + PDSCH, normal/extended CP — N7624B), LTE TDD (v2 optional E-UTRA TDD frame — D/S/U subframe pattern + special subframe DwPTS/GP/UpPTS, PSS/SSS/CRS — N7625B), 802.11 WLAN (OFDM; v2 optional 802.11a/g PPDU — L-LTF preamble, pilots, selectable GI — N7617B), 802.16-2004 WiMAX (256-FFT OFDM; v2 optional frame — exact pilot map + preamble — N7613A), 802.16e Mobile WiMAX (scalable OFDMA; v2 optional DL frame — preamble + DL-PUSC pilots — N7615B), T-DMB (DAB COFDM; v2 optional DAB frame — null + phase-reference symbol, DQPSK — N7616B), Digital Video (DVB-T COFDM; v2 optional scattered pilots — N7623B), Broadcast Radio (FM stereo; v2 optional RDS 57 kHz subcarrier — N7611B)
• Verification plots — I/Q vs time, FFT spectrum, constellation, and CCDF, each with a view dropdown and rubber-band zoom.
• Deliberate pipeline — Calculate generates I/Q off the UI thread with a progress bar, plots, and a live dependency check; Download turns the ARB off, encodes to interleaved 16-bit big-endian two's-complement, frames an IEEE-488.2 definite-length block and writes it to volatile WFM1; Play/Stop arms the ARB and RF with a four-state play indicator. A one-click Calc → DL → Play runs all three.
• Validation — a live checker (minimum samples, even/granularity, memory cap vs the connected baseband option, sample-clock and carrier limits, DAC over-range heuristic) surfaced in a Notifications dock.
• Instrument control — connect over VISA through any installed provider (Keysight IO Libraries, NI-VISA, R&S, Rigol, …), for TCPIP/LAN, GPIB, USB or serial resources, with discovery and *IDN?/*OPT?; an instrument-settings panel (frequency, amplitude, RF/modulation, ARB sample clock, runtime scaling) with read-back; and a raw-SCPI console with a timestamped log.
• In-app closed-loop verification (E4406A / N9010A) — connect a VSA, then Verify measures the played signal (channel power, PAPR, and — for a tone — frequency) and shows it against the expected values (from the generated I/Q) in an Expected-vs-Measured Verification view with pass/fail. A guided Path cal… wizard captures cable loss + analyzer offset as a path-loss correction; a Reference menu locks both instruments to a common 10 MHz timebase; a VSA Mode menu (gated off :INSTrument:CATalog?) selects any installed standard personality (GSM / W-CDMA / cdma2000 / …). A VSA model toggle selects which analyzer the app targets — the E4406A or a Keysight N9010A (EXA); connect verifies the instrument matches the selection. (N9010A support is landing in stages — analyzer selection and the X-Series control plane are in; the SA-mode measurement mapping is in progress.)
• In-app Claude assistant (opt-in) — a natural-language pane that drives the app through a versioned, function-calling tool surface rather than synthetic clicks: read tools (app state, config, validation, readout, personalities), configure tools (pick/configure a source, select a plot, project save/load, calculate), and hardware tools (connect, download, play/stop, set instrument settings). Guardrails are enforced in the dispatcher, not the prompt: read/configure run freely, but anything that touches the instrument requires an inline Approve/Decline card (RF and bus takeover always confirm), and a pre-execution validation gate refuses hardware actions on a hard validation failure — even if approved. It can also measure + verify on the connected analyzer (channel power, ACP, CCDF/PAPR, spectrum peak, waveform, and a closed-loop verify_signal), and exposes an opt-in, always-confirmed raw-SCPI escape hatch (off by default). Read tool_uses run concurrently while configure/hardware stay serialized; long chats are compacted. Tool output is treated as data, never commands; the API key is stored encrypted (Windows DPAPI); the feature is off until enabled. Covered by an end-to-end acceptance suite (schema validity, gate/confirmation, injection resistance, SCPI parity, secret hygiene).
• Projects — save/open the active source + settings as a *.ssproj JSON file.
• Pass --classic on the command line to launch the original single-window UI.

Requirements

• Windows with .NET Framework 4.7.2
• Visual Studio 2017+ (or MSBuild) to build
• For live instrument control, any IVI-compliant VISA runtime installed (Keysight IO Libraries Suite, NI-VISA, R&S, Rigol, …). The app uses the vendor-neutral IVI VISA.NET Shared Components (Ivi.Visa / GlobalResourceManager) and dispatches to whichever provider is installed — GPIB, TCPIP/LAN, USB and serial all go through VISA. No vendor-specific assemblies are referenced.

The core library references Ivi.Visa via a HintPath entry in ESG-SignalCreator.Core.csproj (the IVI VISA.NET Shared Components, installed by any VISA provider); adjust the path if your installation differs. Authoring, preview, validation and project save/load all work without any instrument connected.

Building

# From a Developer Command Prompt / PowerShell with MSBuild on PATH
msbuild ESG-SignalCreator.sln -t:Restore,Build /p:Configuration=Release

Or open ESG-SignalCreator.sln in Visual Studio and build. Run the tests with dotnet test or VS Test Explorer (-t:Restore matters — the test project uses NuGet PackageReferences).

Usage

1. Click Connect…, enter or discover a VISA resource (e.g. TCPIP0::192.168.1.82::inst1::INSTR or GPIB0::19::INSTR) and connect (*IDN?/*OPT? are shown).
2. In the Source view, choose a personality from the picker and edit its parameters (sample rate, length as time/samples/symbols, and the personality's own settings).
3. Click Calculate to generate and preview the waveform; check the Notifications for any validation warnings.
4. Click Download then Play (or the combined Calc → DL → Play) to load and run the waveform; Stop turns the ARB off. The instrument-settings and SCPI-console views are available from the left tree.

Hardware-in-the-loop testing

The unit tests run with no instrument (block framing, encoder, DSP, validation, VSA SCPI parsing, screen-capture block decoding, …). To validate the real instruments, run the headless harness (ESG-SignalCreator.HilHarness):

# ESG-only: RF stays OFF (power -30 dBm) unless --rf-on briefly enables it.
ESG-SignalCreator.HilHarness.exe "TCPIP0::192.168.1.82::inst1::INSTR"

# Comprehensive closed-loop battery (ESG -> VSA) across the frequency range:
# verifies EVERY signal type on the analyzer, with a machine-readable report.
ESG-SignalCreator.HilHarness.exe --vsa GPIB0::17::INSTR --all --dwell-seconds 3 --json report.json

# Target a Keysight N9010A instead of the E4406A (LAN address, --vsa-model):
ESG-SignalCreator.HilHarness.exe --vsa TCPIP0::192.168.1.90::hislip0::INSTR --vsa-model n9010a --all

# Install self-test: the CW/AM/FM/IQ battery on the one selected analyzer (JSON + exit code):
ESG-SignalCreator.HilHarness.exe --install-verify --vsa GPIB0::17::INSTR --vsa-model e4406a --json verify.json

# A single signal type, or the amplitude-flatness power sweep:
ESG-SignalCreator.HilHarness.exe --vsa --signal multitone
ESG-SignalCreator.HilHarness.exe --vsa --flatness
#   options: --vsa-model e4406a|n9010a --points N --start-hz --stop-hz --carrier-hz --offset-hz
#            --verify-power-dbm --max-input-dbm --path-loss-db --dwell-seconds --json

# AUTOMATED screenshots: drive CW/AM/FM/IQ, measure each, and capture the analyzer screen per step —
# one command, no manual setup. Writes cw/am/fm/iq-multitone images + an index.md into the folder:
ESG-SignalCreator.HilHarness.exe --install-verify --vsa GPIB0::17::INSTR --vsa-model e4406a --capture-dir docs/images/vsa

# Or capture just the analyzer's CURRENT display (analyzer-only, no ESG/RF), for an ad-hoc shot:
ESG-SignalCreator.HilHarness.exe --capture-screen docs/images/vsa/cw-result.png --vsa GPIB0::17::INSTR --vsa-model e4406a
#   SCPI overrides for either mode (confirm/adjust per firmware):
#     --capture-data-query ":MMEMory:DATA? \"{0}\"" --capture-save-cmd ":MMEMory:STORe:SCReen \"{0}\""
#     --capture-cleanup-cmd ":MMEMory:DELete \"{0}\"" --capture-temp-path "C:\Temp\ESGCAP.png"

ESG-only mode checks *IDN?/*OPT?, downloads a CW to WFM1, arms the ARB, and reads back frequency/amplitude. The closed-loop battery (--all) connects the analyzer selected by --vsa-model (E4406A default, or N9010A; refusing a mismatched model), enforces the input-damage safety gate (per-model default — E4406A +30 dBm below its +35 dBm rating; N9010A +30 dBm / 1 W per its data sheet), and for each signal type — CW, multitone, AWGN, custom-mod (QAM), multi-carrier, I/Q-impairment, import-I/Q — drives the ESG at a safe level across a frequency sweep and verifies on the analyzer:

• channel power vs the commanded level, and PAPR (CCDF) vs the value computed from the generated I/Q, for every signal;
• tone frequency (CW / import-I/Q), ACPR (custom-mod), and the gain-imbalance image (I/Q-impairment) where applicable.

The analyzer runs in continuous mode during the per-point dwell so the front panel tracks live; the run ends RF-off with the analyzer still sweeping. Per-step PASS/FAIL, optional JSON report, non-zero exit on failure. A separate console project, kept out of the unit-test run so CI stays hardware-free.

Screen capture produces the per-step VSA screenshots for the tutorials and the Manual Verification doc (images written as PNG on the X-Series, GIF on the E4406A). Two modes:

• Automated — --install-verify --capture-dir <dir> drives the ESG through the CW/AM/FM/I-Q battery, measures each on the analyzer, and captures the analyzer's display after each signal, all in one command with no manual setup. It writes cw, am, fm, iq-multitone images plus an index.md that embeds them (ready to paste into the docs).
• Ad-hoc — --capture-screen <file> is analyzer-only (no ESG/RF): it captures whatever the VSA is currently showing, for a one-off shot after you've set a signal up yourself.

Both read the display back over VISA as an IEEE-488.2 block. The default capture SCPI is manual-derived and needs bench confirmation — the --capture-* overrides let you tune it per firmware without a rebuild.

Bench-validated (2026-06, E4406A FW A.08.10) across 50 MHz–3 GHz: all signal types PASS — e.g. multitone PAPR ≈3.8 dB (exp 2.9), AWGN crest ≈10.2 dB, 16-QAM ACPR ≈−48 dBc, a 3 dB I/Q gain imbalance → image at −15.4 dBc (matches theory), and amplitude accuracy within a consistent ~0.76 dB cable roll-off at 3 GHz.

N9010A support is derived from the Keysight X-Series manuals and unit-tested for the SCPI dialect (mode routing, measurement roots, and result-scalar orderings), but is not yet bench-validated — confirm the ACP result layout and the max-safe-input limit against your unit.

Installer

Two artifacts are built with the free WiX Toolset v5 (restored from NuGet by dotnet build, no toolset install needed) — a setup.exe bootstrapper and a raw MSI. From the repo root:

./build-installer.ps1 -Version 1.0.0.0   # builds the app, the MSI, then the setup.exe

• ESG-SignalCreator-Setup-<version>.exe (recommended) — a bootstrapper that chains the .NET Framework 4.7.2 installer: it installs the framework automatically if it's missing, then the app.
• ESG-SignalCreator-<version>.msi — the raw package, for machines that already have .NET 4.7.2.

Both install the app per-machine to Program Files, add Start-menu/desktop shortcuts and a proper Add/Remove-Programs entry (with the app icon), and detect an installed VISA runtime (vendor-neutral — Keysight, NI, R&S, Rigol, …). The installer/bootstrapper projects are kept out of the solution so a machine without WiX still builds the app. See docs/Packaging.md for details.

Prebuilt installers are published on the Releases page. A GitHub Actions workflow builds the MSI + bootstrapper and publishes a release on every push to main (prerelease) and on every vX.Y.Z tag (stable) — see docs/Packaging.md (builds on a Windows runner with the IVI VISA.NET Shared Components — any VISA provider — installed).

Project layout

The solution is split into a UI-free core library, the WinForms app, and a test project:

Path	Purpose
ESG-SignalCreator.Core/	Class library — no UI dependency. Transport, ARB encoding, DSP, personalities, validation.
Core/EsgController.cs	High-level SCPI helpers (frequency, power, ARB download/playback)
Core/Instruments/	IInstrument transport abstraction; VISA and GPIB (488.2) implementations
Core/Visa/	EsgInstrument facade + *IDN?/*OPT? parsing
Core/Arb/	IEEE-488.2 block framing and the int16/interleave/big-endian ARB encoder
Core/Model/	WaveformModel — the neutral I/Q output of every signal personality
Core/Personalities/	IWaveformPersonality contract + CW, Multitone, Multitone Distortion, Multi-Carrier, CustomMod, Pulse, Jitter, GSM/EDGE, AWGN, Import-IQ
Core/Dsp/	FFT, FIR (RRC/RC/Gaussian), windows, CCDF/PAPR, resampling
Core/Validation/	WaveformValidator dependency checker
Core/Capability/	Per-target capability profiles (embedded JSON)
Core/Timing/	SampleCountSolver (time/samples/symbols → sample count)
Core/Project/	SsProject + ProjectStore (.ssproj save/load)
App/Ui/	StudioForm shell, signal-flow canvas, source panels, plot panes, instrument UI
ESG-SignalCreator.App/	WinForms application — references Core (entry point Program.cs)
Core/Measure/	VSA measurements (E4406A Basic-mode / N9010A SA + IQ Analyzer, via a per-model SCPI dialect): Channel Power, ACP, CCDF, Spectrum, Waveform, Power-vs-Time + mask
Core/Verify/	Closed-loop verification harness/profile/result, RF-path safety gate, path calibration
ESG-SignalCreator.Assistant/	In-app Claude assistant: Messages API client, agent loop, tool surface (read/configure/hardware), guardrails, DPAPI secrets
ESG-SignalCreator.Tests/	xUnit tests (721: framing, encoder, DSP, personalities, validation, sequencing, measurements, verification, assistant tools + guardrails + acceptance, …)
ESG-SignalCreator.HilHarness/	Headless hardware-in-the-loop test runner for a real E4438C

Run the tests with dotnet test or VS Test Explorer.

Disclaimer

Not affiliated with or endorsed by Keysight Technologies, Agilent, or National Instruments. "ESG", "E4438C", VISA, and GPIB are referenced for interoperability only. Use at your own risk when driving real hardware.

License

Released under the MIT License.