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Solutions for Antenna Characterization

Brochures

Case Study

Fully evaluate the performance of your antennas in significantly less time

Common problems

- You need more test data to accurately evaluate the performance of your latest antennas, and you need to collect it quickly. The more data you collect, the more accurately you can characterize your antenna’s performance—but you can’t afford to spend weeks making measurements at multiple frequency points and multiple antenna angles.

- You need better measurement sensitivity to characterize today’s high-performance antennas. Today’s antennas can pick up increasingly low-level signals. But as antenna performance increases, you need better measurement sensitivity.

- You need to keep your cost of test in check to stay competitive. The cost of test directly affects the cost of manufacturing and producing antennas, so cost-effective testing is critical.

Key capabilities

– Fast CW mode (Opt. 118) enables

- 400,000 data points/second on five measurement channels simultaneously

- 500 million point circular first-in first-out (FIFO) data buffer

– Measure multiple frequency points faster with 120 μSec frequency switching time without

band crossing at 600 KHz IFBW and 10-MHz step

– +13 dBm output power lets you increase IF bandwidth of the receiver to acquire data faster

Key capabilities

– Measure multiple frequency points faster with 300 μSec frequency switching time without band crossing at 600 KHz IFBW and 10-MHz step

Key capabilities

– Measure multiple frequency points faster with 675 μSec frequency switching time without band crossing at 35 KHz IFBW and 10-MHz step

Solving the problem

The RF subsystem for the company’s spherical near-field antenna test system, installed in 2001, was designed around the Keysight 8722ET vector network analyzer (VNA), which it was ready to replace.

A Keysight channel partner developed a high-speed driver for the Keysight PNA-X Series network analyzer that enabled the antenna manufacturer to test multiple frequencies during a single data acquisition. The new setup allowed the company to collect more data in less time and with a much greater dynamic range on the measurements. 

“We just finished an order for 96 spiral antennas that needed 100% testing from 2 to 18 GHz in 1-GHz increments,” said the company’s technical director. “With the PNA-X, this test took 18 minutes per antenna.

It would have taken 90 minutes with the old 8722ET. The time savings were amazing. The analyzer is so fast that even with 17 frequencies, we were still at 30 degrees per second measurement speed.” 

Results

The antenna manufacturer reduced test time from 90 to 18 minutes per antenna, an 80% reduction, with increased accuracy and test yield.

Typical lower-cost test system with a dedicated receiver for making antenna measurements

– N5264A Opt. 108 PNA-X measurement receiver

– N5183A Opt. 5x0 and Opt. UNZ MXG analog microwave signal generator

Key capabilities

– Excellent measurement sensitivity (compared to an 8530A system with the same settings)

– Maximize system sensitivity by placing the N5264A measurement receiver in an optimal location

Typical test system with optimum measurement sensitivity for testing antennas

– N5264A PNA-X measurement receiver (dedicated)

– E8257D Opt. 5xx and Opt. UNX PSG analog signal generators (two)

Key capabilities

– Optimum measurement sensitivity (3 dB more than N5264A/8530A-based system)

Typical system for testing antennas and components

– N524xA Opt. 200, Opt. 020 or E836xC Opt. H11 vector network analyzer

– N5183A Opt. 5x0 and Opt. UNZ MXG analog microwave signal generator

Key capabilities

– Excellent measurement sensitivity (compared to an 8530A system with the same settings)

– Maximize system sensitivity by placing the N524xA or E836xC vector network analyzer in an optimal location

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