Design&Implementation Of Automatic Control Software For 3D Microwave&Radio Frequency Anechoic Chamber

A microwave anechoic chamber could provide a perfect environment for measuring antennas,radars and other wireless electronic communication devices which is not interfered by external signals and the accuracy and efficiency of test equipments will be significantly improved consequently.With the rapid development of radio frequency technology,more and more frequency bands need to be tested in the radio frequency wireless space field,and the hardware equipments of the dark room are also need to update constantly.However,because of the high cost of erecting a 3D microwave anechoic chamber,improving the test efficiency has attracted more and more attention.The main task of this paper is to design an automatic test software for a microwave anechoic chamber to complete the necessary test of the consumer electronies products during the research and development process.The hardware system is based on ETS-Lindgren's AMS-8813 microwave darkroom.The test instruments are mainly from Rohde Schwarz(R&S),and the remote control interface is the General-Purpose Interface Bus(GPIB).The software is designed using Microsoft Foundation Classes framework under Microsoft Visual Studio.And The control program is written in Python.For instrument-driven prograns,the virtual instrument software architecture VISA(Virtual Instrument Software Architecture)is used as the standard software communication interface between the computer and the instrument,to control the test instrument by the corresponding driver according to the type of instrument.This software can complete the OTA(over the air)test of the whole radiation performance of a device which is valued and recognized by the mobile phone manufacturers,and is one of the essential certification tests before the merchants ship out their products.The main specifications of the OTA test are divided into total radiated power(TRP)and total isotropic sensitivity(TIS).Compared with the test software provided by the microwave anechoic chamber manufacturer,this software replaces the tedious manual input by loading the test configuration file to complete the setting of the instruments and test parameters,whieh simplifies test procedures and optimizes test time.