Nearfield probing system for anisotropic material characterization

  • Entire 12 GHz system design (concept, antennas, RF/IF system, FPGA)
  • Utilization for real-time estimation (120k measurements/s) of timber´s grain angle
Components of the X-Band transmission analyzer: transmit antenna, array of 28 receive antennas, main unit (with cover removed) and setup on a conveyor belt.

© Holger Arthaber

X-band transmission analyzer prototype

Material and Component Characterization

  • Analysis of PCB materials and manufacturing technologies for applications up to 110 GHz
Picture: Wafer prober setup with 2 probes connecting to a test structure on a printed circuit board.

© Holger Arthaber

Characterization of surface platings at millimeter frequencies, Setup

Diagram visualizing the setup for characterization of surface platings at millimeter frequencies.

© Holger Arthaber

Characterization of surface platings at millimeter frequencies, Diagram

Plot: Insertion loss over frequency for different material types and transmission line lengths.

© Holger Arthaber

Characterization of surface platings at millimeter frequencies, Material type A

Plot: Insertion loss over frequency for different material types and transmission line lengths.

© Holger Arthaber

Characterization of surface platings at millimeter frequencies, Material type B

  • AOA Estimation for OFDM Transmission at 5.9GHz
    • Insensitive to bandwidth and center freq. deviations
    • No extensive signal processing
    • Low cost DAC, ADC, signal processing components
Picture: Assembled printed circuit board used for evaluating the signal direction of DSRC signals

© Holger Arthaber

Direction finding prototype for DSCR communication

Plot: Estimated position of the signal source is compared to the correct position.

© Holger Arthaber

Direction finding prototype for DSCR communication

Scanning Microwave microscopy (SMM)

  • Based on atomic force microscopy (AFM)
  • Use conductive cantilever to inject microwave probing signal
Pictures and diagrams showing the parts of a scanning microwave microscope with its components and the connection to a vector network analyzer.

© Holger Arthaber

Scanning microwave microscopy setup