Calibrating an industrial microwave six-port instrument using the artificial neural network technique

Microwave six-port devices have been gaining popularity in many industrial on-line microwave measurement instruments. However, the calibration of a six-port device remains a difficult task, particularly if a large dynamic range of the measurement is required. The recent development of the artificial neural network (ANN) provides a powerful tool for nonlinear approximations which can be used to calibrate the six-port devices. An industrial prototype microwave six-port instrument has been calibrated using the ANN technique, which has achieved high accuracy over a wide dynamic range.