Flexible Methodology for Emulating Physical Channel Impairments

Systems and methods are provided for concurrently emulating multiple channel impairments. The systems and methods may include storing a plurality of channel impairment profiles, where each channel impairment profile corresponds to a respective channel impairment type; receiving a selection of two or more of the plurality of channel profiles; generating a composite impairment profile by combining the selected two or more channel profiles, the composite profile specifying time-variant impairments, the composite profile reflecting a combination of the respective impairment types of the selected channel profiles; and applying the time-variant impairments specified by the composite profile to an input real-time data stream to generate an impaired real-time data stream, where a timing of the application of the time-variant impairments is based at least in part upon timing data from a real-time clock.