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Microwave Focused Beam System

Man sets up microwave focused beam measurement system.
The focused beam system uses microwave lenses to focus microwave energy (2 GHz and up) onto a material specimen. The microwave transmission and reflection are measured, including both amplitude and phase, which then determines the intrinsic dielectric and/or magnetic properties of the specimen. A microwave lens system can also measure diffuse scatter or radar cross section (RCS) of a small target.

Applications of the Microwave Focused Beam System:

The Microwave Lens System measures transmission and/or reflection performance of a material and can calculate a material’s intrinsic properties (dielectric permittivity, magnetic permeability, and/or sheet impedance). It can also measure bistatic or diffuse scatter from a material or target. Examples of Microwave Focused Beam System use includes:

  • Designing radio frequency materials or components, such as radomes, absorbers, microwave substrates, etc.
  • Characterizing insertion loss of radomes or reflection loss of radar absorbers.
  • 5G communications applications and IOT applications (e.g. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc.).
  • Measuring shielding effectiveness of conductive materials (When combined with a conductive wall with an aperture).

Benefits of the Microwave Focused Beam System:

  • Characterizes materials with much less sample preparation compared to other material measurement methods, such as waveguide or coaxial airline.
  • Enables easy determination of anisotropic material properties due to linearly polarized feed antennas.
  • Broadband lenses make easy and less costly extension to higher frequency bands by just changing out the feed antenna (the same lenses can support frequencies as high as W-band — 110 GHz).

Additional Information

  • Two 24” (609 mm) diameter lenses (each lens is two half lenses that can be reconfigured for focusing or collimated beams).
  • Various feed horn options available (e.g. dual-pol 2-32 GHz or 4-40 GHz or others).
  • A microwave lens cart on wheels.
  • Reconfigurable specimen holder for specimens up to 24″ x 24”.
  • Two RF Cables (DC to 50GHz, one 6’ and one 15’).
  • Shipping crates.
  • Installation, system verification and two days’ on-site training.
  • Documentation includes a user manual and a copy of Wideband Microwave Materials Characterization.

Optional Upgrades

The Bistatic Cart is attached to pivot at the sample position and can be combined with the specimen rotation stage to measure bistatic specular or non-specular scatter from a target or a material.

Benefits of the Bistatic Cart:

  • Enables non-normal angle measurements of specimens.

Additional Information:

  • CTGcalc™ software includes a bistatic tab for aligning the cart and collecting measured bistatic data.
  • Requires the turntable upgrade so that the specimen can also be pivoted.
  • Bistatic Cart upgrades are available for the microwave, millimeter wave, and UHF lens systems.

 

CTGcalc™ provides intuitive capabilities to immediately determine and view measured performance and intrinsic properties of materials.

Benefits of CTGcalc™ Base Software:

  • Acquires S-parameter data and performs calibrations, including time domain gating. 
  • Plots transmission (insertion loss) and/or reflection (reflection loss) versus frequency.
  • Conducts material property inversion algorithms for calculating complex permittivity, permeability, and sheet impedance.

Additional Information:

  • Compatible with most modern Vector Network Analyzers (VNAs) — communicates with network analyzers from Copper Mountain, Keysight, Anritsu, Rhode & Schwartz.
  • Includes CTG’s patented autocal algorithm for correcting RF cable drift errors.
  • One year software support and upgrades.
  • Requires Windows 10 or newer.
  • Visit the CTGcalc™ product page to learn more.

Unlike other systems, the lenses in the microwave and millimeter wave focused beam systems are separate from the feeds. This allows the same lens to be used with a variety of commercial feed antennas to cover an extremely wide frequency range.

The tabletop system can be supplied with microwave probes (AMMP SP218 or SP324) and/or 20-40 GHz millimeter wave probes (SP2040).

Typical Feed Horn Ranges:

  • Choose from a variety of frequency range upgrades:
    • 2-32 GHz horns (standard)
    • 4-40 GHz horns
    • 6-60 GHz horns
    • 60-90 GHz horns with extenders
    • 75-110 GHz horns with extenders

The turntable enables an automated rotation of the specimen to angles other than normal incidence.

Benefits of the Turntable:

  • Allows a series of angle measurements to be made with a click of a button.
  • Adds an azimuth rotation stage under the specimen holder.

Additional Information:

  • A rotation turntable and stepper motor are provided along with the requisite software.
  • Requires CTGcalc™ Software.

Monostatic backscatter performance may be needed for applications such as radar cross section or interference mitigation.

Benefits of the Backscatter:

  • Converts the backscatter amplitude into quantitative scatter, such as scatter-width in dB-meters or radar cross section (RCS) in dB-square meters.

Additional Information:

  • Target mounting fixtures and calibration standards for 2D RCS (infinite cylinder) and/or 3D RCS (spheres) are supplied.
  • Basic inverse synthetic aperture (ISAR) capability is provided to create cross-range and down-range images of scatter.
  • CTGcalc™ software functionality for automating azimuth scans and processing / displaying backscatter data.
  • Requires Turntable upgrade.

The oven or furnace upgrade allows you to take measurements of specimens outside of the ambient temperature. It is supplied with microwave transparent (refractory foam) windows to enable transmission of the RF energy onto the heated specimen.

Benefits of the Oven / Furnace:

  • Oven (up to 425C) or Furnace (over 1000+C) options are available to measure RF material properties versus temperature.
  • Automated oven programming so that a series of ramps and holds can be automatically executed, along with pre-programmed temperatures for measuring the RF properties.

Additional Information:

  • Cart is included for easy insertion of the oven or furnace in between the lenses.
  • Sample mounting hardware and the oven controller are supplied.

 

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