Research Of Several Key Technical Issues For The Measurement Of Mobile Communication Base Station Antenna

Mobile communication has developed to the fifth generation(5G),and has become the foundation of new infrastructure and the interconnection of everything.5G network relies on antennas for wireless coverage.However,as a key component of a mobile communication network,antenna's performance is ultimately evaluated and judged through measurement.The measurement process and the accuracy of the measurement results of antennas are affected by many internal and external factors,and the development of 5G and 6G antenna in the future has also put forward many new demands for measurement technology,so the research work of this paperis very important to engineering practices.The development of antenna measurement technology makes it involves more and more technical fields,from electromagnetic field theory to signal processing algorithms,from hardware design to software programming,from low frequency circuits to radio frequency circuits,from electromechanical devices to automatic control,etc.,all of these knowledgescan be used in antenna measurement.This paperstarts from the measurement demandsbelongs to the development of new generation antennas,research several key technical issues that need to be broken through,and conducts in-depth research.The main contents and innovation are listed as follows:(1)Aiming at thecurrent industrystatus that commercial electronic calibration units(ECU)are expensive and cannot be used interchangeably between brands,a general hardware architecture of ECU and a algorithm for microwave network error model based on the characteristics of fractional linear transformation are proposed.The algorithm is applied to self-designed ECU,and an ECU with good performance and compatible to network analyzers of different brands is realized.(2)Aiming at the demands of circuit parameter de-embedding measurement in the R&D and production process of 5G massive MIMO antennas,two types of de-embedding measurement algorithms are studied,and a transmission line structure witch can implement multi-state Kit modules and associated de-embedding measurement method are proposed.The innovative work has overcom the technical issues of online evaluation of filter parameters and accurate extraction of antenna calibration parameters in 5G filter-integrated antennas,can provide technical support for the mass production of 5G antennas.(3)Aiming at the current industry statusthat commercial equipment cannot fulfill the measurement demands of 5G and multi-port antennas,the performance of RF switch component has been optimized,then a multi-port RF switch module with innovative hardware architecture has been developed and be used in the measurement of 5G antennas' circuit parameters,then be used in the individual consistencemeasurementfor 5G antenna,also has been used in the fast far field radiation pattern measurement of multi-port antennas.Thesework provide a cost-effective solution for the performance measurement and evaluation of 5G and 4G multi-port antennas(4)Aiming at the current situation that commercial measurement systems are difficult to support the research and exploration of new antenna technology,open source hardware modules and general slide screw components are used to realize a cost-effective millimeter wave radiation characteristic measurement system,then the measurement ofmillimeter-wave antenna's far-field pattern,the reflection suppression algorithmfor antenna test range,and antenna gain extrapolation measurement methodare also carried out.Thease work overcomes the obstacles caused by the expensive commercial measurement system to theoretical learning,and lays the foundation for the further research of related technologies.(5)Aiming at the fact that commercial instruments are expensive and have poor portability,a method of measuring the vector reflection coefficient by using the open source software radio module and the double directional coupler and combining the microwave network theory is proposed,The measurement results are similar to those of expensive special instruments.In addition,a method of measuring thetransmission frequencypeakby software radio module and calculating dielectric constant of dielectric material by surface data fitting algorithm is proposed.These two research results provide a new and cost-effective solution for the measurement of the antenna reflection coefficient and the measurement of the dielectric materials used in the antenna.The research done in this paper embodies the comprehensive cross-application of multi-disciplinary technology in antenna measurement.The proposed method and devices developed have been applied in engineering practices and exerted good benefits.