Calibration of frequency propagation channel sounder based on five-port reflectometer

Five-port reflectometer which consists of a ring with 5 arms (two inputs, three outputs) and three RF power detectors has been used as a vector network analyser, a demodulator in the homodyne receiver as well as in Phase Looked Loop (PLL) and so on. Calibration of five-port reflectometer is an important task. In this paper, we present a calibration method of five-port for a propagation channel sounder. The method is based on measurement of the phase differences between the three voltages at the five-port's outputs in order to determine the ratio of two input incident waves. The frequency channel sounder based on five-port is calibrated for each frequency from 2.2 GHz to 2.6 GHz with 1 MHz step. This method can also determine the absolute delays of each propagation path in the propagation channel. The calibration method is validated using measurement data.