Measurement of Reflection and Transmission Coefficients Using Finite Impulse Response Least-Squares Estimation
Journal article, 2020

A measurement technique to reduce the error of measured frequency-domain reflection and transmission coefficients, in particular, scattering parameters (S-parameters) measured with a vector network analyzer (VNA), and load reflection coefficients measured in wideband active load-pull system, is proposed. The technique models either the incident or reflected wave as the output of a finite impulse response (FIR) filter, and subsequently apply least-squares estimation (LSE) to estimate the reflection or transmission coefficients which minimize the error of said wave. When compared against the existing technique, the proposed technique offers precision improvement to the estimated reflection and transmission coefficients. Faster VNA measurements using up to 15-MHz intermediate frequency (IF) bandwidth are experimentally shown to be significantly improved to give good correspondence with slower measurements using 100-Hz IF bandwidth as reference. Error improvement across the measurement bandwidth of more than 17 dB is experimentally observed. Furthermore, the improvement is applicable to both the frequency regions with higher and lower signal to noise ratios of the reflected waves. On the other hand, applying the proposed technique in a wideband active load-pull system to estimate the load reflection coefficients, results in significant error improvement over the existing technique. The error improvement is also experimentally observed both in the in-band 3-dB bandwidth frequency region of the wideband modulated test signal and the out-of-band intermodulation frequency regions, where error improvement of 36 dB is observed.

measurement technique

least squares estimation (LSE)

passive load-pull

Active load-pull

microwave network analysis

finite impulse response (FIR) filter

dynamic range

estimation theory

vector network analyzer

transmission coefficient

reflection coefficient

scattering parameters (S-parameters)

identification theory

Author

Dhecha Nopchinda

Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Microwave Electronics

Thomas Eriksson

Chalmers, Electrical Engineering, Communication, Antennas and Optical Networks

Herbert Zirath

Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Microwave Electronics

Koen Buisman

Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Microwave Electronics

IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques

0018-9480 (ISSN) 15579670 (eISSN)

Vol. 68 1 222-235 8906235

Lösningar för trådlös kommunikation med hög datatakt

Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF) (SE13-0020), 2014-03-01 -- 2019-06-30.

Subject Categories

Signal Processing

Other Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering

Condensed Matter Physics

DOI

10.1109/TMTT.2019.2947517

More information

Latest update

12/21/2020