System configurations for nine-port network analyser employing symmetrical five-port junctions

A nine-port network analyser that requires only six (instead of eight or ten) power sensors to obtain the unknown scattering coefficients of a two-port device is proposed. Hardware imperfections will naturally affect the performance of this instrument. Monte Carlo simulations have been conducted in order to evaluate the deleterious effects due to the residual mismatches of the constituent components within the nine-port system. The results suggest that improvements in instrumentation accuracy may be achieved simply by modifying the system´s overall configuration