Synthesis of a Wideband Multiprobe Reflectometer

This paper is aimed at the investigation of the technical realization problem for wideband reflectometers on multiprobe measuring lines. A geometrical interpretation of the measurement procedure that uses multiprobe measuring lines is considered. The parametric optimization problem of reflectometer is formulated and solved by use of a minimax optimum criterion. The results of solving this problem are presented. Tabulated parametric optimization data for reflectometers with probe number N = 4, 5, 6 and with boundary frequency ratio up to 40 are given. Experimental investigation was carried out over the frequency range from 6 to 18 GHz using the simplified calibration procedure of multiprobe reflectometer. Experimental data have confirmed the validity of optimization results.