Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-03T15:49:08.996Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Instrumentation for wireless systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2014

Nuno Borges Carvalho  and
Dominique Schreurs
Nuno Borges Carvalho
Affiliation:
Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal
Dominique Schreurs
Affiliation:
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
Get access

Summary

Introduction

In the first chapter the main figures of merit for microwave and wireless circuits and systems were presented. Those figures of merit are fundamental for a correct specification of the system to be built, and thus their identification and measurement are key to the success of the wireless engineer.

In order to perform correct measurements of those figures of merit, a set of instruments should be used. These instruments should be jointly capable of identifying the most important parameters of the system and clearly, and without any ambiguity, capturing the correct values to be measured.

Several types of instrumentation were developed for gathering all these values and thus clearly identifying the quantities to be measured and specified. In this chapter we present a description of how these instruments work, and their main drawbacks will be explained. For each instrument the quantities to be measured, the internal architecture, the definition of the main instrument parameters, and its calibration procedure will be covered. This is done for the main and most important instruments available to microwave and wireless engineers, namely

  1. (1) power meters

  2. (2) spectrum analyzers

  3. (3) vector signal analyzers

  4. (4) real-time signal analyzers

  5. (5) vector network analyzers

  6. (6) nonlinear vector network analyzers

  7. (7) oscilloscopes

  8. (8) logic analyzers

  9. (9) noise-figure meters

Type
Chapter
Information
Microwave and Wireless Measurement Techniques , pp. 63 - 132
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

[1] European Union, Council Directive 89/617/EEC of 27 November 1989 amending Directive 80/181/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to units of measurement.
[2] Agilent Technologies, Agilent fundamentals of RF and microwave power measurements, Application note 64-1C, 2001.
[3] Rohde & Schwarz, Voltage and power measurements - fundamentals, definitions, products (Application note).
[4] D., Humphreys and J., Miall, “Traceable RF peak power measurements for mobile communications,” IEEE Trans. lustrum. Meas., vol. 54, no. 2, pp. 680–683, Apr. 2005.Google Scholar
[5] H., Gomes, A. R., Testera, N. B., Carvalho, M., Fernandez-Barciela, and K. A., Remley, “Diode power probe measurements of wireless signals,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 59, no. 4, pp. 987–997, Apr. 2011.Google Scholar
[6] M. B., Steer, Microwave and RF Design: A Systems Approach. Herndon, VA: SciTech Publishing, 2010.Google Scholar
[7] J. C., Pedro and N. B., Carvalho, Intermodulation Distortion in Microwave and Wireless Circuits. New York: Artech House, 2003.Google Scholar
[8] C., Brown, Spectrum Analysis Basics. Hewlett-Packard Company, 1997.Google Scholar
[9] C., Rauscher, Fundamentals of Spectrum Analysis. Rohde & Schwarz, 2001.Google Scholar
[10] P. S. R., Diniz, E. A. B., da Silva, and S. L., Netto, Digital Signal Processing -System Analysis and Design. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
[11] G. F., Engen and C. A., Hoer, “Thru-reflect-line: An improved technique for calibrating the dual six-port automatic network analyzer,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 27, no. 12, pp. 987–993, Dec. 1979.Google Scholar
[12] A., Lewandowski, D. F., Williams, P. D., Hale, J. C. M., Wang, and A., Dienstfrey, “Covariance-based vector-network-analyzer uncertainty analysis for time-and frequency-domain measurements,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 58, no. 7, pp. 1877–1886, Jul. 2010.Google Scholar
[13] BIPM, Evaluation of measurement data – guide to the expression of uncertainty in measurement, http://www.bipm.org/en/publications/guides/gum.html, 2008.
[14] D., Schreurs, “Applications of vector non-linear microwave measurements,” IET J. Microwaves, Antennas Propagation, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 421–425, Apr. 2010.Google Scholar
[15] P., Blockley, D., Gunyan, and J. B., Scott, “Mixer-based, vector-corrected, vector signal/network analyzer offering 300 kHz-20 GHz bandwidth and traceable phase response,” in IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium, Jun. 2005, pp. 1497–1500.Google Scholar
[16] T., Van den Broeck and J., Verspecht, “Calibrated vectorial nonlinear-network analyzers,” in IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium, May 1994, pp. 1069–1072.Google Scholar
[17] T. S., Clement, P. D., Hale, D. F., Williamset al., “Calibration of sampling oscilloscopes with high-speed photodiodes,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 54, no. 8, pp. 3173–3181, Aug. 2006.Google Scholar
[18] D., Humphreys, M., Harper, J., Miall, and D., Schreurs, “Characterization and behavior of comb phase-standards,” in European Microwave Conference (EuMC), Oct. 2011, pp. 926–929.Google Scholar
[19] P. D., Hale, C. M., Wang, D. F., Williams, K. A., Remley, and J., Wepman, “Compensation of random and systematic timing errors in sampling oscilloscopes,” IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas., vol. 55, no. 6, pp. 2146–2154, Dec. 2006.Google Scholar
[20] Agilent Technologies, Noise figure measurement accuracy - the y-factor method, Application note 57-2, 2010.

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×