50-GHz handhelds support satellite, radar applications

Keysight Technologies aims to provide the measurement capability you need in the form factor of your choice, whether bench, modular, or portable. The company’s most recent initiative in this regard is the September addition of six new millimeter-wave models to its family of FieldFox handheld analyzers. The flagship model is the industry’s first handheld combination analyzer to provide coverage to 50 GHz.

Three combination-analyzer models cover 32 GHz, 44 GHz, or 50 GHz and provide spectrum analysis, vector network analysis, and cable and antenna testing in a rugged, portable unit. The three spectrum-analyzer models accommodate the same frequency range.

During an interview at Keysight’s Santa Rosa headquarters, Dan Dunn, general manager for RF and microwave handheld analyzers, traced the new instruments’ ancestry back to the HP 8566B spectrum analyzer in 1978 and 8510A vector network analyzer in 1984 and on to the first FieldFox products—an RF handheld analyzer in 2008 and microwave handheld analyzer in 2012. FieldFox, he said, leverages the company’s historical measurement science capabilities and calibration expertise. It can replace three or four single-function instruments—benchtop or handheld—that typically are used for maintenance and troubleshooting of systems that operate at or above Ka-band (26.5-GHz to 40-GHz) frequencies. They can run for 3.5 hours on a replaceable battery. He attributed the instruments’ high performance and low power largely to the devices produced at the Santa Rosa facility’s III-V semiconductor fab.

“At only 7.1 pounds, the new FieldFox models deliver laboratory-grade measurements that enable field personnel to fully characterize today’s most demanding radar and satellite systems,” Dunn said. “In addition, a FieldFox combination analyzer provides unprecedented functionality and value at about half the cost of each equivalent benchtop instrument.” He added that in addition to being used in radar installation and maintenance, satellite ground station, electronic warfare, spectrum monitoring, and microwave link applications, FieldFox can serve as a companion instrument in laboratories to provide fast time to measurement. He cited MarketsandMarkets estimates that commercial and aerospace/defense mm-wave markets will grow at a 42% CAGR through 2020.

Satellite ground-station maintenance

Dunn described satellite Earth-station maintenance (Figure 1) as a particularly promising application area, as virtually all fixed-satellite-service operators are fielding Ka-band systems to take advantage of the available spectrum, wider bandwidths, and higher data rates.1 “Growth in the commercialization of space has been compared to the Internet explosion of the 1990s,” he said, noting that startups, established companies, governmental agencies, and investors are teaming up on low-Earth-orbit and medium-Earth-orbit spacecraft ranging from CubeSats to large platforms.