Keysight Technologies

Best Practices for Making

the Most Accurate Wireless
and Radar Pulse Measurements

White Paper
Introduction

From designing a complex radar system design to various wireless applications, today’s RF and
wireless test engineers are constantly challenged to deliver comprehensive test results within the
tightest schedule without compromising the overall test coverage or reducing the scheduled test
time. Hence, modern test engineers chose RF and microwave power meters and sensors to analyze
the output power of their test systems as this solution is cost-effective, and offers maximum test
coverage and faster measurement speed.

As a long time manufacturer of power measurement tools for the wireless and aerospace and
defense industry, Keysight Technologies, Inc. has invaluable knowledge to share on making optimal
power and pulse measurements. This paper will cover various tips and tricks to help test engineers
achieve the fastest and most accurate power and pulse measurements.

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Achieving Accurate and Consistent Rise/Fall Time

Power meter users will sometimes get different rise/fall time measurements
with different scale settings. This is mainly because the power meter is not set-
up correctly to fully capture the entire rising edge to the pulse top.

The rule of thumb is to set the power meter time scale to zoom into the rising
edge of the pulse and ensure that the power meter captures the pulse top level.
As long as the time-scale setting is long enough for the power sensor to capture
the pulse top level, the power sensor is able to provide accurate rise-time mea-
surements. However, if the time scale is set to too long, the resolution worsens
and the accuracy starts to degrade again.

Capturing RF Pulses with Noisy Spikes

Digital modulation such as OFDM and 64QAM can cause the signal envelope to
be very spiky and noisy. A triggering base on trigger level alone will not work on
this kind of signal because the noises within a pulse cross the trigger level mul-
tiple times and cause unstable trigger capture. Hysteresis and hold-off settings
are important in this case to ensure stable capture of the noisy pulse envelope.

Trigger Hysteresis Figure 1 shows how typical trigger hysteresis works. Point Z in Figure 1 is the
first point at which the RF signal has risen above the upper hysteresis threshold
and is not falling again below the lower hysteresis threshold within the quali-
fication time. Therefore, the rising edge is detected as point Z, which is the
accurate and desired trigger point. This method is well known and widely used
in oscilloscopes and power meters.

X Y
Upper
threshold

Lower
threshold
Z
Qualification time

Figure 1. An RF signal with a leading edge

masked by noisy spikes

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Capturing RF Pulses with Noisy Spikes

Trigger Hold-Off When a pulsed signal is a burst of a digitally modulated signal, hysteresis for
noise rejection, as shown in Figure 2, could cause a whole burst to be missed
because the signal always drops below the lower hysteresis threshold. Another
technique of trigger hold-off is therefore used to prevent problems arising from
multi-triggering by suppressing triggers for a time after the first detection. It is
recommended that the trigger hold-off time be set for a duration longer than the
signal burst time, as in Figure 2. With this setting, the power meter is able to
capture complex, digitally modulated signals like OFDM pulses.

Qualification time

Upper threshold

Lower threshold

Burst on-time

Hold-off time

Figure 2. Trigger hold-off time should be slightly longer than the on-time of the OFDM
signal for accurate and stable trigger capture

Maximizing Equipment Dynamic Range for Accurate Pulse Measurements

Capturing and measuring signals in the low power range is challenging for most
test engineers as the actual signal is often very close or sometimes buried
under the signal noise floor. By using techniques such as external triggering,
reducing the video bandwidth setting and increasing the video averaging, one
can maximize the peak power dynamic range of the power meter or sensor and
ensure accurate measurements.

External Triggering An external trigger enables accurate triggering of a small signal close to the
signal noise floor. Typically, an external trigger signal is required from the signal
source or the device-under-test (DUT) to trigger the power meter for measure-
ment acquisition.

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Maximizing Equipment Dynamic Range for Accurate Pulse Measurements

Video Bandwidth When the video bandwidth setting of a peak power meter is reduced, the peak-
to-peak variations of the noise are reduced. This is due to the high-frequency
spectrum of the RF signal, which dictates that the noise signals are removed,
thereby leaving a smoother trace response.

(a) High (30 MHz) video bandwidth setting (b) Low (5 MHz) video bandwidth setting
Figure 3. Comparison of different video bandwidths and their corresponding captured RF envelope

Video Averaging

Figure 4. A clean trace is observed with a sufficient video

average setting

The trace results in Figure 3b can be further improved by applying the video
averaging setting. Figure 4 shows the same –25 dBm signal captured using a
video averaging setting of 64. The noise has been removed and there is now
a very clean signal. With the combination of external triggering, lowering the
video bandwidth and applying sufficient video averaging, engineers can measure
even down to lower than –30 dBm of the peak signal.
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Maximizing Pulse Measurement Speed

Test time and accuracy are two critical requirements for most engineers,
especially in high-volume manufacturing. In general, there are three possible
measurement speed settings in Keysight power meters and sensors: normal,
double and fast.

The different measurement speeds of these three settings differ according to

power sensors, as tabulated in Table 1.
Table 1. Measurement speed of Keysight power sensors under different speed modes

Power sensor
Measurement mode
Normal Double Fast
8480 and N8480 Series 20 readings/s 40 readings/s --
E-Series E4410 and 20 readings/s 40 readings/s Up to 400 readings/s
E9300
E-Series E9320 (Average 20 readings/s 40 readings/s Up to 400 readings/s
mode)
E-Series E9320 (Normal 20 readings/s 40 readings/s Up to 1,000 readings/s
mode)
P-Series wideband 20 readings/s 40 readings/s Up to 1,500 readings/s
U2000 Series USB 20 readings/s 40 readings/s Up to 110 readings/s
U2020 X-Series USB 20 readings/s 40 readings/s Up to 3,500 readings/s

Fast mode, along with buffer mode, which allows user to retrieve multiple
readings at once, provides the fastest measurement speed possible but with
some limitations. In this mode, averaging, limits and ratio/difference math-
ematic functions are disabled. In both normal and double mode, however, full
instrument functionality is available.

Table 2 shows the results of measurements made with no buffer versus a buffer
count of 100

Table 2. Measurement comparison between buffer mode and non-buffer mode with the
U2021XA X-Series sensor

Measurement Power sensor Measurement Pros Cons

Mode settings speed
No buffer U2021XA 500 Accurate Returns only
(TRIG:COUNt 1) power level: 5 dBm readings/s measurement, one reading at
measurement useful for a time, slower
mode: fast measurement speed
(SENS:MRATe FAST) when querying
trigger count: 1 one reading
(TRIG:COUNt 1)
Trigger U2021XA 3500 Accurate May cause
count of 100 power level: 5 dBm readings/s measurements, less accurate
(TRIG:COUNt 100) measurement returns multiple measurement
mode: fast readings (up to if measuring
(SENS:MRATe FAST) 100 maximum) a low power
trigger count: 100 at once, fastest signal
(TRIG:COUNt 100) measurement
speed

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Conclusion

Knowing how to optimize power measurement tools will give engineers an

edge in completing tests faster, with more accuracy and efficiency. Keysight
Technologies offers a complete range power meters and sensors to help test
engineers achieve faster and more comprehensive power and pulse measure-
ments, including the new Keysight U2020 X-series peak and average power
sensors, which are the world’s fastest USB peak power sensor and provide the
capability of a traditional bench power meter in a small and compact form factor.

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8 | Keysight | Best Practices for Making the Most Accurate Wireless and Radar Pulse Measurements - White Paper

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© Keysight Technologies, 2012-2014
Published in USA, August 2, 2014
5991-0760EN
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