Six-Port Reflectometer Insensitive to Power Detectors’ Impedance Mismatch

This paper presents the first six-port reflectometer, which is insensitive to power detectors’ impedance mismatch. It exhibits optimum measurement conditions and provides low measurement error regardless the reflection coefficient of the used power detectors. Simultaneously, the developed six-port is of low complexity, comparable to other solutions. A theoretical analysis reveals that by application of identical power detectors the impact of their impedance mismatch on the six-port’s measurement performance is completely eliminated. To validate this concept experimentally two six-port reflectometers are developed i.e., the proposed one and a reference six-port, which for ideally matched power detectors provides theoretically identical power distribution. Both reflectometers are calibrated and applied to measure reflection coefficients over the frequency range from 5.7 GHz to 5.9 GHz with both well-matched and highly reflective power detectors. The obtained results clearly show that the proposed six-port provides low measurement errors for both types of power detectors, whereas the reference six-port cannot operate properly with highly reflective power detectors.