From antenna radiation pattern acquisition to a system ... - SEE

From antenna radiation pattern acquisition to a system emission andimmunity characterisationA. Menard Gilles 1 B. François Cyrille 1 , C. Korsakissok Joël 11: SILICOM, 1, Imp. Louis PUEYO, 31700 BLAGNACAbstract: SAMS is an Antenna Pattern Acquisitionsystem which can be adapted for various area. Theobjective of this article is to detail the integration ofSAMS on a application for test the electromagneticcompatibility.Keywords: Electromagnetic compatibility, antennameasurement, test bands.The electromagnetic compatibility test stand is specific toeach system under test. It is necessary to customize bothgeneration and acquisition chain. First the software allows1. IntroductionSAMS is a product family in the area of antenna radiationpattern acquisition and processing system. It has beendeveloped and is commercialised since 1998, bySILICOM, in partnership with the CNES (French SpatialAgency).The CNES expertise in antenna measurements togetherwith SILICOM’s proficiency in software developmentand in hyper-frequency studies led to producing a modern,reliable and user adapted software system, both in its usermodes and in its parameter setting, maintainability, speedand measurement accuracy.Beyond the innovation included in this system we canpromote the automatic measurement speed calculation inorder to optimise the compromise velocity/precision, butalso a separated data analysis module that allows tocompare data issued from any simulation code and theone from experiment.This document presents the characteristics and thetechnical innovations of our system and describes how weapplied the SAMS technical innovations to another fieldof expertise : the electromagnetic compatibility.The new application is based on the simulatordevelopment and exploitation platform, available as afreeware. It is based on the free API Juzzle(www.juzzle.com) and may be used in many domains(telecommunication, electronics, network, signalprocessing, vulnerability,...).2. From antenna radiation pattern acquisition to asystem emission and immunity characterisation2.1 Customizes your Generation and Acquisition teststandsto define the experimentation close behind the physicaltest stands.Figure 1 : Generation and acquisition chainsThe “figure 1” describes the configuration of connectionsbetween devices.2.2 Define the generation chain and control measurementson the acquisition chainOne of the major improvement of our system is apermanent control of the level of the generation chainwith a customable control loop function.The application can pilot a complex system of axessupporting the element to be measured. In SAMS, the axisnotion is very general, and can represent dimensionalvariables (translating or rotating mechanical axes),electrical variables (frequency, radio-frequency power,polarisation…) and time. The axis are built from thecustomization of the Generation and Acquisition testsstands. The test band configuration is stored in theWindows register or into readeable files. So the user doesnot know the high level notion of axes and it can focuseupon its experimentation.An acquisition consists in defining one sweep axis(mechanical, electrical or temporal). Then all or part ofthe other axes are considered as section axes. As well asto customize the test stands, the user does not matter todefine a sweep axis. So the SAMS acquisition system isETTC 2005 – European test & Telemetry Conference

integrated into an application based upon the Juzzleframework that provides graphic controls to define andcontrol the test band according to the user requirements.2.3 Instrument drivesIf the system is user centric around the user requirements.During the experimentation, the system shall be closed todevices fonctionnalities.The application defines an interface for each kind ofdevices (generator, spectrum analysor, power meter, …);Some of these devices can be controlled by several driversaccording to the number of axes defined for the device.The system allows to save and retrieve a great quantity ofdata provided by different experimentations. This isallowed to compare and analyse some experimentations toeach other.These analyses depend on the system under test an can bevery different. For an antenna radiation patternacquisition, SAMS DA allows to display the antennaradiation pattern.The number of implemented drivers represents more than100 different devices, among the most spreadconstructors: HP, ROHDE & SCHWARZ , SA, MI,…and is in constant progression.3. Managed dynamickly the configuration of all yourstest stands3.1 An experimentation data baseOne of the main objectives to a test stand is to check thata system under test has the same characteristics thanduring a previous experimentation.The previous experimentation configuration and resultsare imported to the application and the user can modifiedparameters (devices setting, set of valid axies positions)before a new run.All mesured data of an experiementation are saved withtheir test stand configuration.3.2 Management of a stand configurationAt each experimentation, measurements are different butthe test stand configuration shall also be changed (a newdevice, new parameters for a chain).To ensure the reused of a previous experimentation, thechain configuration shall be managed using a versioncontrol system. The juzzle framework allows to do that. Itbecomes possible to save and retrieve all configurations ofall chains and also all configurations of all devices usedby those chains.3.3 Management of devices’ driversA device is defined by its characteristics (immuable), a setof parameters and some drivers. Drivers use the SAMSinterface to communicate with the earth of the system.But if the software allows to manage all experimentations,it shall also manage the revision of devices drivers. This isa major requirement to test the evolutions of all testbands.4.1 Data analysis4. Processing measurementsFigure 2 : A antenna radiation pattern4.2 Data conversionThe application shall produce synthesis results to createreports. Each experimentation can be diferent. So it isnecessary to define processing to convert measurementdata into useful information.4.2 Export dataThe application data shall be able to export some of theseresults towards external applications for simply buildreports (Word, openOffice, Excel, …) or for othertraitements.5. ConclusionExtend the features of SAMS for antenna radiated patternacquisition to the electromagnetic compatibility leads tofocuse the application on the user and its goal.The challenge is to improve the software and keep itsmain characteristics of reliable, user adapted softwaresystem, maintainability, speed and measurement accuracy.The goal is reached using new sotwares technologies ofintegration and inter-communication betweenapplications.We have merged the world of simulation, with theframework Juzzle, and the world of experimentation withthe software SAMS. The result is a user centricapplication who can easily evoluate with the user’s needs.ETTC 2005 – European test & Telemetry Conference