Software for EMC Testing and Antenna Measurements
11 February 2025 – ETS-Lindgren introduced TimeWise, the latest addition to ETS-Lindgren’s popular Software Solutions, which allows time domain gating and Fourier analysis of raw data, simulated or collected from equipment such as vector network analyzers (VNAs). TimeWise is a library toolkit for data post processing that can be used with other software packages, providing maximum flexibility to greatly simplify your EMC testing and antenna measurements.
The TimeWise library provides many features beyond basic Fourier Transform analysis including on-the-fly parameter adjustments to help better identify time domain events, perform additional gating analysis even on previously gated data sets, and utilize a patented edge treatment method,” said Zhong Chen, Chief Engineer at ETS-Lindgren. “As an active technical contributor to and Vice Chair of the American National Standards Committee (ANSC) C63, I can emphasize the committee is always looking for improvements in measurement techniques. With the development of the new standard ANSI C63.25.1 for EMC test site performance validation from 1 GHz to 18 GHz, we’ve realized the enormous benefits of time domain gating for fast, diagnostic, repeatable, and reliable measurements. TimeWise was a natural evolution of our C63 standards research.”
Time domain gating is a well-known technique to remove or isolate responses in a multiple reflective environment. Many commercial VNAs include the gating algorithm as a “black box” function. A user has little recourse to reprocess or further process the data once the data has been downloaded from a VNA. TimeWise provides users with the convenience, flexibility, and control of the process rather than relying on the VNA-generated data. The library enables users to process measurement data at any time, from anywhere. The library also seamlessly integrates with conventional programming languages such as Matlab, Python, C#, and others.
It is well known that gated results can exhibit significant “band edge effects” due to the band-limited measurement data. Consequently, these effects lead to difficulties in comprehending measurement uncertainties. “TimeWise incorporates the standard edge treatment technique (edge renormalization method) often found in commercial VNAs. The newly developed spectrum extension edgeless gating (SEEG) technique is included in TimeWise to reduce the edge effect significantly compared to the conventional edge renormalization method,” said Yibo Wang, Senior RF Engineer at ETS-Lindgren. “By incorporating the patented SEEG algorithm to address band edge effects, we have improved measurement accuracy in various scenarios. This enables a more effective evaluation of measurement uncertainties that pertain to a user’s particular applications,” he added.
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