Arduino RF Power Meter (Tx Power in Watt)

Other Hardware Science and Measurement
1

Hi,

Greetings.

I would like to prepare a design for RF Power Measurement (eg. RF Power of Radio / Base Station) working in 100Mhz to 1800MHz.

Please provide some guidelines and details of components and code to be used.

Thanks in advance.

Best Regards,
Rupesh Avinash Salvi

2

At what impedance are you measuring the power?

Paul

3

What max power level and accuracy and dynamic range do you want?
Thru-line or dummy load?

4

Paul_KD7HB:
At what impedance are you measuring the power?

Paul

50 Ohm or 75 Ohm

5

MarkT:
What max power level and accuracy and dynamic range do you want?
Thru-line or dummy load?

Hi,

Thanks for your response.

Max Power level may be 50Watt with Thru Line.

I understand that there are some RF Power modules available, but I would like to make a very small unit for field testing.

Thanks again.

Best Regards,
Rupesh Avinash Salvi

6

rupeshasalvi:
Hi,

Thanks for your response.

Max Power level may be 50Watt with Thru Line.

I understand that there are some RF Power modules available, but I would like to make a very small unit for field testing.

Thanks again.

Best Regards,
Rupesh Avinash Salvi

What part will the Arduino play?

That frequency range will definitely cause problems, particularly trying to calibrate the thing.

Are you trying to emulate a commercial device? If so, which one.

Paul

7

Make your choice: https://www.digikey.ca/products/en/rf-if-and-rfid/rf-detectors/862

8

With a thru-line meter you have to have a carefully calibrated extremely-broadband directional coupler to siphon
off an accurate constant proportion of the power to measure, this is why such measurement is tricky.

If you can measure the frequency separately and correct readings in software, the coupler doesn't
have to be precision, you just compensate on the fly from calibration curve you only have to measure
once. A frequency ratio of 1:18 is quite a tall order though.

Measuring VSWR is an easier problem, as you only need the ratio of two coupled signals, so the
actual variation of coupling with frequency cancels out - you just have to make sure the coupler
is physically symmetrical.