Patents Assigned to Spirent Communications
  • Publication number: 20210279663
    Abstract: The disclosed technology teaches delivering scarce test equipment resources to a user within a test organization: receiving a test graph that specifies equipment capabilities needed, by class and times when the capabilities are needed. The technology includes maintaining an inventory of equipment resources and capabilities, by class, and responsive to the user invoking the graph, scheduling the needed equipment: identifying alternative resources responsive to the need and selecting a group of resources to schedule; bundling the group of resources to schedule into an immediate bundle needed to start the test and a deferred bundle needed later, after the start of the test; and queuing a deferred bundle reservation for a later time, after the scheduled start of the test. During the test, the technology includes notifying the user of availability of the equipment resources in the deferred bundle when they become available and marking the deferred bundle as in use.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 5, 2020
    Publication date: September 9, 2021
    Applicant: Spirent Communications, Inc.
    Inventors: Patrick HORNBERGER, Eric Gregory MILLER, Yujie LIN, Kalina Stilianova KOINOVA
  • Publication number: 20210232727
    Abstract: The disclosed technology teaches simulating new satellite messages for a GNSS simulation, providing a configuration file and programming script file, neither of which is pre-compiled into GNSS simulation code, that specify format for a message for a satellite and message format combination not yet operational or not yet compiled into the GNSS simulation code. Included is reading and applying the configuration file and running a script from the programming script file to generate navigation data for simulating positioning messages during the GNSS simulation and using the navigation data for simulating positioning signals during the GNSS simulation and testing of a GNSS receiver against the satellite and message format combination. The disclosed technology also teaches determining message format and values to use when simulating position signals by combining field format and field data values from a combination of the configuration files, almanac, ephemeris and related data, and the programming script files.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 29, 2020
    Publication date: July 29, 2021
    Applicant: Spirent Communications PLC
    Inventors: John W. WILKINSON, Mark Geoffrey Holbrow, Steve Michael Moroz
  • Patent number: 11070451
    Abstract: The technology disclosed provides a method of testing handling of HTTPS sessions of a plurality of clients with a plurality of servers by a switching, bridging or routing device (i.e., a DUT), where the testing is conducted by a test system coupled to ports on the DUT. The method includes using client state machines running on at least four processor cores, communicating through the DUT with server state machines running on at least four additional processor cores. The method also includes, for each connection between a client represented by a client state machine and a server represented by a server state machine, setting up an HTTPS session by negotiating an encryption protocol and completing an HTTPS handshake. Further, the method includes following the setup of between 100,000 HTTPS sessions and 10,000,000 HTTPS sessions, conducting a stress test including combining payload data and header information without using the negotiated encryption.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 11, 2017
    Date of Patent: July 20, 2021
    Assignee: Spirent Communications, Inc.
    Inventors: Kevin Canady, Richard Wank, Xiaohua Wu, Chunsheng Li
  • Publication number: 20210173077
    Abstract: The disclosed technology teaches testing an autonomous vehicle: shielding a GNSS receiving antenna of the vehicle from ambient GNSS signals while the vehicle is under test and supplanting the ambient GNSS signals with simulated GNSS signals. Testing includes using a GNSS signal generating system: receiving the ambient GNSS signals using an antenna of the system and determining a location and acceleration of the vehicle from the GNSS signals, accessing a model of an augmented environment that includes multi-pathing and obscuration of the GNSS signals along a test path, based on the determined location—generating the simulated GNSS signals to feed to the vehicle, in real time—simulating at least one constellation of GNSS satellite sources modified according to the augmented environment, based on the determined location, and feeding the simulated signals to a receiver in the vehicle, thereby supplanting ambient GNSS as the autonomous vehicle travels along the test path.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 4, 2020
    Publication date: June 10, 2021
    Applicant: Spirent Communications PLC
    Inventors: Colin Richard Ford, Mark Geoffrey Holbrow, Steve Hickling, Mark Hunter, Guy Buesnel, Neil Bennett, Daniel Martin
  • Patent number: 11032147
    Abstract: The disclosed methods for reducing the port setup time for a large number of TWAMP test sessions for performance measurement testing of telecommunication transport networks include parsing a configuration file to populate an accept-port data structure with proposed receiver ports for communication from a session-sender to session-reflectors; repeatedly and in parallel, from a control client, communicating with receiving servers to set up pairwise test sessions using receiver port allocations from the accept-port data structure, and receiving and checking blocks of Accept-Session messages from the receiving server and handling either case of acceptance of the proposed receiver port or of counter proposal of an alternate-and-available port to be used for the measurement session; and allocating the alternate-and-available port and updating the accept-port data structure by storing the alternate-and-available port received in the particular Accept-Session message; and using the stored ports to initiate TWAMP mess
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 22, 2020
    Date of Patent: June 8, 2021
    Assignee: Spirent Communications, Inc.
    Inventor: Jyotikumar U. Menon
  • Patent number: 11023363
    Abstract: Systems, methods, and devices for creating test and testing a plurality of touchscreen devices are described. The methods comprise creating a test script by recording the touch events performed on a touchscreen device by a technician. The method of recording touch events for later use as a test script is faster and requires less programming knowledge, compared to manually writing a test script. This is beneficial if a new test script is needed quickly because a technician can perform a desired touch sequence on a device recording the sequence and then distribute the recorded sequence to be played on a plurality of devices to be tested. The recorded sequence may include a plurality of sequential touch events. Additionally, the recorded sequence may include conditional statements used to determining the timing of simulating one of the touch events in the sequence.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 10, 2017
    Date of Patent: June 1, 2021
    Assignee: Spirent Communications, Inc.
    Inventors: Rupert Lloyd, Ian Becker, Ardeshir Ghanbarzadeh, Ivo Tadic, Yuanke Wang
  • Publication number: 20210092039
    Abstract: The disclosed technology teaches testing a mesh network using new service application level KPIs that extend the TWAMP measurement architecture. A control-client receives and parses a configuration file to populate memory with IP addresses, ports, and test session parameters for disclosed KPIs used to originate two-way test sessions from a first network host; with control-servers and session-reflectors.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 17, 2020
    Publication date: March 25, 2021
    Applicant: Spirent Communications, Inc.
    Inventor: Jyotikumar U. Menon
  • Patent number: 10884910
    Abstract: The technology disclosed enables the automatic definition of monitoring alerts for a web page across a plurality of variables such as server response time, server CPU load, network bandwidth utilization, response time from a measured client, network latency, server memory utilization, and the number of simultaneous sessions, amongst others. This is accomplished through the combination of load or resource loading and performance snapshots, where performance correlations allow for the alignment of operating variables. Performance data such as response time for the objects retrieved, number of hits per second, number of timeouts per sec, and errors per second can be recorded and reported. This allows for the automated ranking of tens of thousands of web pages, with an analysis of the web page assets that affect performance, and the automatic alignment of performance alerts by resource participation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 4, 2019
    Date of Patent: January 5, 2021
    Assignee: Spirent Communications, Inc.
    Inventor: Brian Buege
  • Publication number: 20200396657
    Abstract: The disclosed technology teaches detecting abnormal behavior of a UE mobile device, including a network data analytics function component, in communication with core network components of a cellular network, subscribing to location change-related events that report a change event for a UE device connection to and/or drop or handover from a cell. Included is analyzing location change-related events to detect abnormal handover behavior when the UE device changes its selection of a base station or cell more than N times in not more than M minutes, and reporting the detected abnormal handover behavior with an identifier of the UE mobile device involved and the involved cell's ID. The technology also applies to a group of UE devices selected for analysis, by device, geography or custom-defined affinity, with selection changes among a set of base stations or neighboring cells, each selected at least twice by the UE device in M minutes.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 10, 2020
    Publication date: December 17, 2020
    Applicant: Spirent Communications, Inc.
    Inventors: Peretz M. FEDER, Sandra R. THUEL
  • Patent number: 10853232
    Abstract: Systems, methods, and devices for creating a test performance monitoring and reporting system that is adaptive for use with different types of mobile devices are disclosed. The test performance monitoring and reporting system adapts itself to be interoperable with different models of mobile device by combining sequences of deterministic logic blocks with device-specific asset libraries. Logic blocks can be added to or removed from the sequence. Logic blocks implement different operations of mobile devices, including using assets, launching applications, and replaying sequences of command interface interactions recorded from test users. The asset library contains assets corresponding to mobile device elements that can be manipulated by users. These assets are device-specific, and a test script can be adapted to fit a particular mobile device model by replacing the existing assets in the script with assets from the asset library of the particular mobile device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 19, 2018
    Date of Patent: December 1, 2020
    Assignee: Spirent Communications, Inc.
    Inventors: Evan C. Henry, Ian S. Becker, Robert R. Brown, Yuanke Wang
  • Patent number: 10848372
    Abstract: The disclosed methods and systems of using TWAMP measurement architecture for testing a large network include a control-client running on a first network host initializing memory for test session parameters used to originate a test, parsing a configuration file to populate the memory with IP addresses, ports and QoS parameters for control-servers and session-reflectors; and originating test sessions using the test session parameters.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 12, 2018
    Date of Patent: November 24, 2020
    Assignee: Spirent Communications, Inc.
    Inventor: Jyotikumar U. Menon
  • Patent number: 10841196
    Abstract: The disclosed technology teaches testing a mesh network using new service application level KPIs that extend the TWAMP measurement architecture. A control-client receives and parses a configuration file to populate memory with IP addresses, ports, and test session parameters for disclosed KPIs used to originate two-way test sessions from a first network host; with control-servers and session-reflectors.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 26, 2018
    Date of Patent: November 17, 2020
    Assignee: Spirent Communications, Inc.
    Inventor: Jyotikumar U. Menon
  • Patent number: 10841413
    Abstract: The disclosed technology teaches ad hoc testing a connection between subscriber mobile phone and counterpart location with which the subscriber is having trouble, including positioning a test harness near the location, remote from the subscriber and from a service technician. The harness includes a controller, two mobile phones with an audio cross-over cable connection between, and control connections between controller and phones. The cable feeds output of respective speakers to respective microphones and inhibits transmission between the phones of signals for button presses.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 2, 2020
    Date of Patent: November 17, 2020
    Assignee: Spirent Communications, Inc.
    Inventors: Revanth K. Pentakota, Laukik R. Deshpande, Dat Phan
  • Publication number: 20200322220
    Abstract: The disclosed methods for reducing the port setup time for a large number of TWAMP test sessions for performance measurement testing of telecommunication transport networks include parsing a configuration file to populate an accept-port data structure with proposed receiver ports for communication from a session-sender to session-reflectors; repeatedly and in parallel, from a control client, communicating with receiving servers to set up pairwise test sessions using receiver port allocations from the accept-port data structure, and receiving and checking blocks of Accept-Session messages from the receiving server and handling either case of acceptance of the proposed receiver port or of counter proposal of an alternate-and-available port to be used for the measurement session; and allocating the alternate-and-available port and updating the accept-port data structure by storing the alternate-and-available port received in the particular Accept-Session message; and using the stored ports to initiate TWAMP mess
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 22, 2020
    Publication date: October 8, 2020
    Applicant: Spirent Communications, Inc.
    Inventor: Jyotikumar U. Menon
  • Publication number: 20200322694
    Abstract: At least three uses of the technology disclosed are immediately recognized. First, a video stream classifier can be trained that has multiple uses. Second, a trained video stream classifier can be applied to monitor a live network. It can be extended by the network provider to customer relations management or to controlling video bandwidth. Third, a trained video stream classifier can be used to infer bit rate switching of codecs used by video sources and content providers. Bit rate switching and resulting video quality scores can be used to balance network loads and to balance quality of experience for users, across video sources. Balancing based on bit rate switching and resulting video quality scores also can be used when resolving network contention.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 7, 2020
    Publication date: October 8, 2020
    Applicant: Spirent Communications, Inc.
    Inventors: Michael Colligan, Jeremy Bennington
  • Publication number: 20200280506
    Abstract: The disclosed technology teaches TCP session processing architecture for conducting numerous TCP sessions during testing of a network-under-test: multiple processor cores running, allocated to TCP session handling, and program instructions configured to distribute processing of each TCP session across multiple cores with a first set of cores allocated to handle TCP control, a second set of cores allocated to handle TCP packet transmission, and a third set of cores allocated to handle TCP packet receiving. The disclosed architecture also includes a shared memory accessible to the first, second and third sets of cores, that holds PCBs for each of numerous TCP sessions during the testing with update access controlled by an atomic spinlock processor instruction that each TCP state machine running on a core must engage to secure the update access to a respective PCB, in order to proceed with state processing of its respective TCP session.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 18, 2020
    Publication date: September 3, 2020
    Applicant: Spirent Communications, Inc.
    Inventor: Jyotikumar U. Menon
  • Patent number: 10742523
    Abstract: Some tests can be implemented as services. A network provider can deploy (“push”) a test to a container resident on one or more devices of the network, either at installation, periodically, or when a problem is reported. When a customer reports an issue, services running on one or more devices of the customer's installation can cause the containerized tests to be run. For example, the central office of the network provider can initiate a request to run the test through the internet (or other connection) by the container. In some implementations, there is an overlap of the service based test set with traditional technician initiated test sets forming a hybrid testing architecture.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 8, 2018
    Date of Patent: August 11, 2020
    Assignee: Spirent Communications, Inc.
    Inventor: Douglas Grinkemeyer
  • Publication number: 20200233768
    Abstract: The technology disclosed relates to implementing a virtual test platform (VTP) and running virtual test applications (VTAs) from an unsecured location. Using a phone home service, the VTP establishes a secure tunnel connection with a test controller. The VTP receives configuration information for a VTA from the test controller. If the VTA is not stored on the VTP, the VTP retrieves the VTA from a repository specified by the test controller. The configuration information from the test controller includes information needed for the VTP to set up a second secure tunnel. The VTP establishes the second secure tunnel and launches the VTA. The VTP relays information sent through the second tunnel to the VTA, and also relays messages from the VTA back to the test controller.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 6, 2020
    Publication date: July 23, 2020
    Applicant: Spirent Communications, Inc.
    Inventors: Douglas Grinkemeyer, David Dailey, Kevin Myers, Daniel Abarbanel
  • Publication number: 20200204591
    Abstract: The technology disclosed is a method of testing handling of secure communication sessions of clients with servers by device or system under test (DUT). The method includes (i) establishing a secure communication session between the client and the server while the client and the server transitions past a standards-required verification step or validation step without performing the required verification or validation, (ii) establishing a secure communication session between the client and the server while the client and the server reuse standards-required security mechanisms without generating or obtaining new standards-required security mechanisms, or (iii) establishing a secure communication session between the client and the server while the client and the server generate and transmit content contrary to an established standard-based procedure that poses certain requirements of the content.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 20, 2018
    Publication date: June 25, 2020
    Applicant: Spirent Communications, Inc.
    Inventors: Li YANG, Suma SUBBARAO, Scott Wayne Parcel, Jurrie VAN DEN BREEKEL, David Gary DeSanto
  • Patent number: 10693729
    Abstract: The disclosed methods for reducing the port setup time for a large number of TWAMP test sessions for performance measurement testing of telecommunication transport networks include parsing a configuration file to populate an accept-port data structure with proposed receiver ports for communication from a session-sender to session-reflectors; repeatedly and in parallel, from a control client, communicating with receiving servers to set up pairwise test sessions using receiver port allocations from the accept-port data structure, and receiving and checking blocks of Accept-Session messages from the receiving server and handling either case of acceptance of the proposed receiver port or of counter proposal of an alternate-and-available port to be used for the measurement session; and allocating the alternate-and-available port and updating the accept-port data structure by storing the alternate-and-available port received in the particular Accept-Session message; and using the stored ports to initiate TWAMP mess
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 12, 2018
    Date of Patent: June 23, 2020
    Assignee: Spirent Communications, Inc.
    Inventor: Jyotikumar U. Menon