Uncertainty of a RMS Power Detector
J.G. Gilcher (TU Delft - Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science)
H.D. Denekamp (TU Delft - Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science)
M Spirito (TU Delft - Electronics)
F.A. Musters (TU Delft - Electronics)
R.A. Coesoij (TU Delft - Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science)
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Abstract
The accuracy of a true-RMS detector board based on the Analog Devices LTC5596 is determined by measuring the input power and the output voltage. A number of samples of the output voltage is taken and the mean and standard deviation is shown. These measurements are done for single-tone excitation with a direct connection and over-the-air setup, and for multi-tone excitation with a direct connection.
It has been demonstrated that the detector response worsens with over-the-air excitation, resulting in a doubling of the standard deviation in the output voltage compared to a direct connection. With multi-tone excitation, the standard deviation is fifteen times higher than with a direct connection. Additionally, with multi-tone excitation the mean output voltage is lower than with the same input power as single-tone. This discrepancy increases with the amount of tones.
A Keysight Advanced Design System simulation is also presented for the three different measurement setups. With the use of a Monte Carlo simulation uncertainty bounds between the function generator and the power detector are made. Furthermore the noise of the power detector is simulated and sources of noise analyzed.