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"Measurement Challenges for 5G Wireless" (Dr. Kate Remley) & "Extending VNA uncertainties from S-parameters to the end-user’s application” (Dr. Dylan Williams)

Kolloquium der Abteilung 2

"Measurement Challenges for 5G Wireless":

At millimeter-wave frequencies, for wide modulation bandwidths, and for multiple-antenna-element arrays, the hardware performance of circuits and systems becomes increasingly nonideal. The new Communications Technology Laboratory at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology is focused on methods to overcome measurement challenges associated with 5G and other advanced wireless systems. We will discuss calibration and measurement techniques to correct millimeter-wave modulated-signal measurements, illustrating that traditional assumptions at microwave frequencies may not be adequate at millimeter-wave frequencies.

"Extending VNA uncertainties from S-parameters to the end-user’s application”

 

Most electrical engineers think of uncertainty as providing confidence in the measurements. In this discussion, I will look at how we can use uncertainties to predict what electrical engineers really care about, the expected range of performance of electrical circuits. The approach is based on the NIST Microwave Uncertainty Framework, a program we have developed at NIST to make uncertainty analyses more useful at NIST and to end users. The program does this by standardizing the format of the uncertainties, including correlations, and providing tools for propagating the uncertainty through a broad spectrum of linear and nonlinear analyses. I will touch on a number of applications that cannot be addressed with standard frequency-point-by-frequency-point uncertainty analyses, including developing uncertainties for EVM measurements, mismatch-corrected oscilloscope measurements, LSNA measurements, transistor models, and the prediction of electrical circuit performance.