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US 6,674,293 B1Granted
Adaptable pre-matched tuner system and method
OwnerChristos Tsironisinventor
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OwnerChristos Tsironisinventor
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The present invention is an adaptable pre-matched tuner system and calibration method for measuring reflection factors above Γ=0.85 for a DUT. The system includes a first and second large-band microwave tuners connected in series, the first and second large-band tuners being mechanically and electronically integrated; and a controller for controlling the two large-band tuners. The first tuner is adapted to act as a pre-matching tuner and the second tuner is adapted to investigate an area of a Smith Chart that is difficult to characterise with a single tuner, so that the combination of the first and second large-band tuners permits the measurement of reflection factors above Γ=0.85. The pre-matched tuner system allows the generation of a very high reflection factor at any point of the reflection factor plane (Smith Chart). The pre-matched tuner must be properly calibrated, such as to be able to concentrate the search for optimum performance of the DUT in the exact location of the reflection factor plane where the DUT performs best, using a pre-search algorithm.
An electro-mechanical microwave tuner comprising a slotted transmission airline, in which two, similar or equal in size, metallic microwave probes are moved in, out and along the slotted airline by means of electrical remote control, in which the microwave probes can be inserted individually into the slot of the airline in such a way as for the physical vertical distance between each probe and the center conductor of the airline to be remotely adjustable from a maximum of at least two times the diameter of the center conductor of the airline to a minimum of zero, said minimum distance corresponding to physical contact between the probe and the center conductor and in which the physical horizontal position of each microwave probe is adjustable independently, from a minimum of zero to a maximum of one half of a wavelength at the lowest frequency of operation.
A calibration method for electro-mechanical microwave tuners as in claim 1, consisting of measuring and saving its microwave scattering parameters (S-parameters) on a previously independently calibrated microwave vector network analyzer in a sequence of the following steps:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.