A seven-port wave-correlator based vector network analyzer is proposed. The seven-port wave-correlator is a combination of two six-port wave-correlators which share common components. Furthermore, the complex wave ratio measurement accuracy is improved since the input signals can be directly detected by the side-arm ports. A seven-port wave-correlator is fabricated using microstrip branch line couplers. The performance of the wave-correlator and the constructed network analyzer are evaluated, and the measurement accuracy is confirmed.

An RF front-end using a six-port circuit is a promising technology for realization of a compact software defined radio (SDR) receiver. Such a receiver, called a six-port direct conversion receiver (DCR), consists of analog circuit and digital signal processing components. The six-port DCR itself outputs four different linear combinations of received and local signals. The output powers are measured at each port, and the received signal is recovered by solving a set of linear equations. This receiver can easily cover a wide frequency band unlike the conventional DCR since it does not require the precise orthogonality that the conventional one does. In this paper, we propose a novel calibration method for a six-port system that includes nonlinear circuits such as diode detectors. We demonstrated the demodulation performance of a six-port DCR by computer simulation and experiments at 1.9, 2.45, and 5.85 GHz.

A Fourier-optics based imaging system for electromagnetic interference (EMI) sources is presented. It is necessary to decrease undesired emissions in order to meet EMI requirements. To investigate this problem, a visualization of electromagnetic (EM) emitting fields is very useful. In this paper, we propose a passive imaging system of EM emitting fields based on Fourier optics. Amplitude and phase values of diffracted fields on an entrance pupil are acquired by using a six-port interferometer. The measured EM fields are then processed on a computer, and an image is retrieved using an inverse Fresnel transform. Experiments are presented, which demonstrate the potential of the proposed method. The proposed system is useful not only in the field of electromagnetic compatibility (EMC), but also for scientific elucidation to discuss the optics and microwave theory of the same viewpoint.

A simple adapter de-embedding method is presented in a six-port calibration process using only one sliding load and one standard short. Adapter de-embedding is performed to extract the S-parameters of the adapter from the six-port system parameters. The concept of this method is based on the relations between the S-parameters and the Fourier coefficients of the periodic return loss of the adapter. To complete the de-embedding procedure, there are two measurement steps: one is return loss measurement with the sliding load, and the other, sidearm power measurement with the standard short. Using these measured values, unique solutions of the S-parameters are determined. A computer-controlled six-port with 2.4 mm coaxial-type connector was designed for calibration using a waveguide-type sliding load over the frequency range of 8.5-12.0 GHz. Through experiments, the adapter for joining two unlike connector types was measured. Then the reflection coefficients of the adapter with the sliding load measured by the calibrated six-port and those calculated from the S-parameters were compared with each other. As a result, an overall good agreement with standard deviation of less than 0.1% was found at all setting frequencies. One of the main features of the method is that the S-prameters of a two-port as well as the system parameters of a six-port can be determined by means of simple scalar measurement.

This paper discusses the effect of random errors in power meter readings by the six-port reflectometer. By means of six-port techniques, the determination of the reflection coefficient (Γ) of a divice under test is reduced to the problem of finding a common intersection of three circles in the complex plane. Since the intersection usually forms a cluster due to the effect of measurement error, the extraction of a single value from the cluster including the radical center of the three circles is required. Two types of methods are presented for determining Γ. One uses a linear solution for the radical center, and the other is a statistically based nonlinear solution. In order to improve measurement accuracy, the effect of random errors in the sidearm power meter readings and due to the influence of the q-point locations are investigated for each method. By adding a random variation of 0.5% onto each of the three port power ratios, the variance distributions of Γ over the entire area of the Smith chart are simulated for comparison of these two solutions. The three dimensional variance distribution chart reveals that only the nonlinear solution suffers a variance increase shown as a ridgelike peak along the lines of centers of the three circles. As a result of computer simulations, it is clarified that the reflectometer has the property of measurement accuracy dependence on the value of Γ. A new type of six-port model is suggested, which is unlikely to be affected by random errors in the nonlinear solution.