Development of a Computer Software for Measurements of Permittivity and Electromagnetic Shielding Effectiveness

The electrical properties and electromagnetic shielding capability of materials in an electromagnetic environment play a significant role in the propagation and interaction of electromagnetic waves. This study investigates the measurement of electromagnetic shielding effectiveness, one of the key methods used to prevent electromagnetic interference (EMI), and the determination of the dielectric properties of the materials employed. Within the scope of the project, a Python-based interface was developed for a low-cost vector network analyzer (VNA) operating in the 100 kHz to 6 GHz frequency range. The designed interface enables the calculation of characteristic electromagnetic properties such as scattering parameters, permittivity, loss tangent, reflection loss, and absorption loss, and total shielding effectiveness. Measurements were performed using the waveguide method, and rectangular WR229 waveguides operating in the $3.3-4.9 \mathrm{GHz}$ frequency band were used in this study. VNA calibration was performed through the developed interface in accordance with the waveguide frequency range. Moreover, the source code of the proposed VNA interface is freely available on GitHub