Patent · US Expired

Internal automatic calibrator for vector network analyzers

US5715183A · kind A · utility

20Cited by
11References
12Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateJul 29, 1996
Grant dateFeb 3, 1998
Priority date
Expiry dateJul 29, 2016

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG01R35/00
  • WIPO fieldMeasurement
  • WIPO sectorInstruments

Abstract

A calibration technique for a vector network analyzer (VNA) enabling calibration standards to be included internal to the VNA. To calibrate the VNA utilizing the internal calibration standards, error terms a, b and c of two two-port error boxes E are defined between the measurement ports and the reflectometer of the VNA wherein a=-det(E), b=e00 and c=e10. Error terms a, b and c are determined by measuring external calibration standards with known reflection coefficients connected directly to the measurement ports. Reflection coefficients for internal calibration standards are then determined using the error terms a, b and c to enable future automatic calibrations. To measure S-parameters of an arbitrary device under test (DUT), one embodiment of the present invention uses the Ferrero technique to measure a reciprocal thru with estimated S.sub.21 characteristics connected between ports A and B to determine an additional error term .alpha. for the error boxes E, where .alpha.=e01.sub.A /e.sub.01B.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.