White Papers
June 18, 2015
Pulse signals are widespread in radar and other EW applications and must be accurately measured for manufacturing, design of countermeasures, and threat assessment. However, pulse measurements are an especially challenging area for signal analysis due to a combination of factors such as wide pulse bandwidth, pulses that are difficult to detect, and increasingly complex signal environments. This application note discusses the best tools for different types of pulse analysis, along with display and analysis techniques for various signals and measurement goals.
May 19, 2015
The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to the use of smart and connected electronic devices to enable greater efficiency and productivity in our daily lives. These devices permeate homes, vehicles, buildings, manage security, safety, energy, and inventories, and many other areas. Keysight flexible RF test solutions help you test IoT devices and get the most from your budget. We have prepared a series of application notes to address the test challenges of IoT devices.
May 19, 2015
Big Iron ATE isn't ready for the evolving RF test market. Its costs are simply too high and its flexibility too low. Discover how Ball Systems, a National Instruments Alliance Partner, integrated a fully modular RF test measurement system, for a new product line of WLAN Front End Modules (FEMs), covering multiple wireless bands and achieving high power compression test requirements in much less development time and at a substantially lower cost than a traditional solution.
May 19, 2015
Originally designed for use in military applications to deter enemy radar, electromagnetic absorbing materials and the technologies with which they are often packaged have advanced considerably. Absorbers have now found use in countless applications - from reducing capacitive coupling between an integrated circuit and heat sink to attenuating common mode currents along a trace or cable. In particular, automotive technologies have improved significantly, with such features as collision avoidance, lane-changing assist, and automatic parking becoming integrated into platforms by nearly every major automobile manufacturer.
May 19, 2015
Finding the source of radio frequency interference is a critically important activity as the number of emitters inexorably increases. These emitters are not only licensed and unlicensed transmitters but also many kinds of unintended emitters. Finding an interfering emitter is often more art and creative thinking than science.
May 14, 2015
One of the most important parameters in a radio is the noise floor, or the receiver's noise figure. These parameters determine the lowest signal strength of very weak input signals that the receiver can still recover successfully. If the receiver noise within the demodulated bandwidth is larger than the received signal itself, the weak input signal cannot be demodulated. In order to elevate the weak signal of interest above the receiver noise floor, either the transmit signal power must be increased or the noise floor of the receiver must be reduced.
May 5, 2015
Today's microwave and wireless communications market is expanding at an incredible rate, thus increasing the need for test equipment that will help verify the performance of devices and systems. A flexible tool for a broad scope of applications is the signal generator because of its wide frequency range, high output power and variety of modulations. For example, signal generators with a minimum frequency of 9 kHz permit applications in EMC measurements. Frequency coverage up to 12.75 GHz covers ISM bands as well as all important mobile radio bands. Microwave signal generators may cover or support frequencies up to 20 GHz, 40 GHz and even 110 GHz.
April 30, 2015
The surge of technologies that utilize RF design, ranging from mobile phones, to wireless Internet connections and communications using Bluetooth devices, requires a comprehensive understanding of RF design, manufacturing and test. When you also include RF applications like RF Backhaul Video, GPS, GSM and CDMA communications protocols, radar, broadband communications, WiFi, ZigBee and RF transmitters and receivers, the need for your contract manufacturer (CM) to not only comprehend the issues and challenges, but to have a deep understanding of the failure mechanisms that can cause defects that fail long before completing their intended life expectancy is critical.Â
April 21, 2015
Often RADAR equipment designers are faced with power level requirements which far exceed the level achievable from a single solid state device. While GaN technology has brought higher power densities to the designer's toolbox, paralleling two or more devices for even higher power levels is still routinely done in the industry. For the device designer it is of great benefit to understand what the equipment designer is faced with when scaling up the power by combining multiple RF power devices. This paper provides a detailed report of the design, build, and test of a 4-stage L-band amplifier module based on four MAGX-001214-650L0S GaN RF power transistors in the final stage. The demonstration amplifier will be designed to achieve at least 2kW of peak RF power under pulsed operating conditions over the frequency band of 1.20 1.40 GHz.
April 21, 2015
RF record and playback is an important method used to validate real-world GNSS (GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, and Beidou) systems. The sheer volume of data that these systems create necessitates being able to stream data to disk and analyze it later. Engineers and researchers are now recording and playing back real-world signals for all types of RF systems. They are simple to install and use and can be driven around in a vehicleâ??s trunk or backseat. These devices can record data including the exact location of a vehicle when important situations occur and precise weather and road conditions.