Keysight Technologies
Antenna Test
Selection Guide
Keysight Technologies, Inc. provides many of the components you need to
make accurate antenna and radar cross-section (RCS) measurements. This
Antenna Test Selection Guide will help you select the hardware necessary
to meet your antenna measurement requirements. This note is primarily for
customers who want to design, integrate, and install their own antenna mea-
surement system using Keysight antenna test equipment, and for customers
migrating to Keysight’s latest network analyzers. For the experienced do-it-
yourself customer, this selection guide will describe the input and output char-
acteristics of antenna measurement components available through Keysight.
Your Keysight Technologies sales engineer will be glad to assist you in procur-
ing the instrumentation. Keysight Technologies does not provide software or
integration services for antenna measurement systems. However, Keysight
Productivity Services can provide these services for a fee.
Some customers may prefer the design, integration, and installation of an
antenna system be performed for them by a solution supplier who has exten-
sive antenna test conguration experience. Keysight Technologies works with
channel partners who can provide this service. Our channel partners will work
with you to understand your measurement needs and design an antenna test
system that meets those needs. They will design the RF subsystem, the posi-
tioning subsystem, the measurement application software, and provide system
installation and training.
This selection guide is meant as an aid for those with extensive antenna test
experience. Refer to the Keysight website: www.keysight.com/nd/antenna for
access to technical papers and current antenna test equipment information.
Use this guide to:
– Understand how Keysight instruments can be integrated
into your conguration
– Learn about interface requirements between components
– Understand issues related to selecting the equipment required
to make antenna measurements
– Learn how to migrate from the 8510 to PNA network analyzer
or 8530 to N5264A PNA-X measurement receiver.
1. Introduction
1. Introduction ........................................................................................................... 2
Use this guide to: ............................................................................................................ 2
Main parts of an antenna range..................................................................................... 4
Channel Partners ............................................................................................................ 4
2.
Overview of antenna applications using
Keysight PNA Series network analyzers
........................................... 5
Near-field antenna measurements ................................................................................ 6
Far-field antenna measurements ................................................................................... 7
Radar cross-section measurements ............................................................................ 10
Banded millimeter-wave measurements ..................................................................... 11
Broadband Solution Configuration ....................................................................................... 12
Option Descriptions ...................................................................................................... 21
3. Antenna measurement design considerations ...............24
Transmit site configuration........................................................................................... 24
Receive site configuration with external mixing .......................................................... 29
Determining measurement speed ................................................................................ 34
Optimizing speed and dynamic range ......................................................................... 35
Legacy PNA interface requirements ............................................................................ 36
Functional test .............................................................................................................. 43
4. Migrating from 8510/8530 to PNA Series ................................. 44
Migration from 8510/8530 based antenna systems to PNA Series based systems. ...... 44
Engineering services provided for 8510/8530 migration to
PNA Series network analyzers . ................................................................................... 45
Migration examples . .................................................................................................... 46
5. Antenna measurement components catalog .......................... 48
Microwave network analyzers ...................................................................................... 48
Sources .......................................................................................................................... 52
Frequency converters ................................................................................................... 54
Amplifiers ...................................................................................................................... 66
Multiple-channel measurements ................................................................................. 68
Measurement automation ............................................................................................ 72
Appendix 1: PNA
Series
security features .......................................................... 74
Terms and definitions ................................................................................................... 74
PNA Series memory ...................................................................................................... 75
Memory clearing, sanitization and/or removal procedures ........................................ 75
User and remote interface security measures ............................................................ 76
Procedure for declassifying a faulty instrument.......................................................... 77
Appendix 2: How to select PNA
Series
IF BW
with performance comparable to 8510 ....................................................................... 78
Appendix 3: How to congure an external source
for use with a PNA
Series
.................................................................................................. 78
Table of Contents
03 | Keysight | Antenna Test – Selection Guide