Patent Description:
The measuring apparatus can be used to design a filter to attenuate the conducted emissions generated by the EUT or a matching network.

A second aspect of the present invention relates to a measuring method adapted to perform methodological steps with the apparatus of the first aspect of the invention.

The measurement of the conducted emissions generated by an EUT and of the characterization parameters of the EUT is performed in the prior art independently, by means of two separated apparatuses, for example by means of a spectrum analyser, for the interference signals, and an impedance analyser or a network analyser, for the characterization parameters of the EUT.

The use of the above mentioned two separate apparatuses is accepted in the prior art as necessary to perform measurements, but it exhibits several problems. First, if the EUT is generating conducted emissions at the measuring ports, its characterization by means of the characterization parameters of the EUT may be very poor (the conducted emissions interfere with the measurements).

Besides, the use of those separate measurement apparatuses provides measurements at different times and under different operating conditions, so that one cannot know which was the conducted emissions generated by the EUT exactly at the same time and under the same operating conditions as the measurements of the characterization parameters were obtained, and vice versa.

This is a great disadvantage, which makes it very difficult and prone to errors for the skilled person, who needs the two types of measurement information (for example, for modelling the EUT). In consequence, these two kinds of information are linked by means of estimations, which is always a source of errors, impeding to meet the strict low error tolerances demanded by some regulations.

Some prior art documents are identified and briefly described below, since they represent some relevant examples of instruments and/or methodologies that can be used to measure the excitation-dependent parameters of an EUT (for instance, the impedance, S parameters, conversion loss of a mixer, conversion efficiency, etc.).

<CIT> describes a test set to measure the S parameters of EUTs with more than two ports (multiport) by means of switching matrices placed between the signal generator, the receivers and the EUT. The instrument includes the signal processing to transform the conventional S parameters to mixed-mode S parameters in one side, and to a time-domain representation on the other side (equivalent to a reflectometer measurement).

<CIT> describes a high frequency non-linear measurement system for analysing the behaviour of high power and high frequency amplifiers. The measurement system includes multiplexers and demultiplexers formed by filters, directional couplers and splitters, improving previous measurement systems that only used multiplexers and demultiplexers exhibiting poor transmission and reflection characteristics at certain frequencies.

Paper "<NPL>, describes a methodology to find the values of passive R, L and C components under conditions where the measurement signals are non-sinusoidal, based on linear system identification and modal parameter estimation techniques.

<CIT> describes a method for characterizing, at a given frequency, reflected waves of a frequency translating device (such as a mixer, in phase/quadrature modulators and demodulators, etc.) having at least two ports. The proposed method determines the frequency conversion factor of the EUT (with an integrated LO) by measuring the reflection factor using a one port network analyser, while applying known impedances at the other port of the EUT and a filter for image rejection. The method needs to assume reciprocity between up conversion and down conversion.

<CIT> describes an interface that allows to connect a two-port network analyser to a multiport EUT (that is, with more than two test ports). The interface device has at least two levels of switches, and is adapted to be coupled between the test ports of the EUT and a two-port network analyser.

However, while the instruments or methods disclosed by the prior art documents cited above have only been designed to measure some specific parameters of an EUT (such as the S-parameters or the frequency conversion), none of them have been built to measure both the excitation-independent and excitation-dependent parameters of an EUT at all, much less in a coherent and integrated way.

It is, therefore, necessary to provide an alternative to the state of the art which covers the gaps found therein, by providing a measuring apparatus which allows to perform measurements of both the conducted emissions generated by an EUT and the characterization parameters thereof.

To that end, the present invention relates to a measuring apparatus as defined in independent claim <NUM>.

As stated above, the EUT may have less than N ports (in this case, some of the ports of the EUT would remain unused), or more than N ports, in this case some of the ports of the EUT would remain unmeasured. With this understood, in the present section, the EUT will be supposed a M-port device.

For a preferred embodiment of the measuring apparatus of the first aspect of the present invention, the arbitrary waveform generator is configured and arranged to generate (simultaneously or sequentially) said combination of N test signals from discrete sequences of length L with auto-correlation Rxx ( <MAT>, where x* represents the complex conjugate and [l + n]L represents a circular shift, with a modulus outside the origin lower or equal than <MAT> for n ≠ <NUM>, and modulus of the cross-correlation Rxy ( <MAT>) with a modulus lower or equal than <MAT>.

According to some embodiments, the measuring unit has N, <NUM>N or 3N ports.

For an embodiment, the measuring apparatus of the first aspect of the present invention, the arbitrary waveform generator is configured and arranged to simultaneously generate said combination of N test signals and/or simultaneously inject the generated N test signals to the N ports of the coupling network, and wherein:.

For an alternative embodiment, the arbitrary waveform generator is configured and arranged to inject the generated N test signals to the N ports of the coupling network, and wherein:.

Depending on the embodiment, the aforementioned N test signals are tones or chirp signals or modulated signals or pulses or impulses or wideband signals covering a frequency range to be measured.

For a preferred implementation of the embodiment for which the N test signals are pulses, they form pseudonoise (PN) sequence signals.

According to a further embodiment, the processing unit comprises processing means to process the received measured electrical signals using correlation techniques with the injected N test signals, to separate data representative of the conducted emissions generated by the EUT from data representative of the characterization parameters of the EUT.

For an embodiment, the coupling network contains Line Impedance Stabilization Network (LISN) channels configured and arranged:.

According to an embodiment, the processing unit is configured to compute a modal decomposition of data representative of the aforementioned measured electrical signals.

For an embodiment, the processing unit comprises the EMC (Electromagnetic compatibility) detectors (peak, quasi-peak and average detectors) applied directly on the modal decomposition of data representative of the aforementioned measured electrical signals.

For an embodiment, the signal generator is configured to generate and inject N test signals with a period smaller than the switching period of the EUT connected or to be connected thereto, to characterize the variations along time of conducted emissions generated by the EUT and characterization parameters of the EUT, whether because the signal generator is adapted to operate only with EUTs having a known switching period which is always greater than that provided by the signal generator, or, preferably, because the signal generator can be adapted, specifically the period of the test signals, to a plurality of different switching periods of different EUTs.

In this sense, this document discloses in a posterior section how the information required from the EUT is directly obtained from the measurements (b<NUM>M and b<NUM>M). For instance, if the measured EUT features a switching-mode power supply at its ports, the switching period can be easily extracted from a single measurement of the conducted emissions (the first harmonic in the spectrum of these emissions provides the switching speed). Therefore, the instrument does not need to have preliminary information about the EUT (although this case is also embraced by the present invention, for other embodiments), but to perform a measurement of the conducted emissions, detect the first harmonic of the emissions, and then inject PN sequences (or other kinds of excitations) suitable to measure the changing impedance of that particular switching-mode power supply. The same applies to other kind of switching devices such as AC-AC, AC-DC, DC-AC and DC-DC converters.

It should be emphasized that a measurement is a complex process wherein the instrument may have to interact several times with the EUT in order to fully characterize it. At each iteration the instrument may generate different kind of excitations (Vg) to find features of the EUT that permit a full characterization of SEUT and VN(see description of these parameters in a posterior section in this document), even in time-varying situations, as the described above.

According to an embodiment, the processing unit is configured and arranged to process the N test signals and the measured electrical signals, and also to design a filter to attenuate the conducted emissions generated by the EUT.

For a further embodiment, alternative or complementary to the above mentioned embodiment, the processing unit is configured and arranged to process the N test signals and the measured electrical signals, and also to design a matching network for the optimal transference of the conducted emissions generated by the EUT.

The present invention also relates, in a second aspect, to a measuring method as defined in independent claim <NUM>.

For another embodiment, the method of the second aspect of the present invention comprises using the measuring apparatus of the first aspect of the invention to perform the method steps, wherein:.

According to an embodiment of the method of the second aspect of the present invention, the method comprises:.

For an embodiment of the method of the second aspect of the present invention, the step of designing the optimal filter further comprises carrying out an optimization process in order to reduce the number filter components combinations to be virtually connected to and simulated with the built circuital and modal models.

According to an implementation of that embodiment, the optimization algorithm comprises at least one of the following algorithms, or a combination thereof: genetic algorithm, gradient algorithm, conjugated gradient algorithm, and Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shannon algorithm.

In the following some preferred embodiments of the invention will be described with reference to the enclosed figures. They are provided only for illustration purposes without however limiting the scope of the invention.

In the present section some working embodiments of the measuring apparatus of the first aspect of the present invention and of the different signals intervening in the operation thereof, will be described with reference to the Figures.

The description below refers to embodiments of the apparatus/method of the present invention to perform sequential measurements (Approach A) of conducted emissions and impedance and also simultaneous measurements (Approach B) thereof.

The embodiments described above for the measuring apparatus of the first aspect of the present invention, allow the computation of the conducted emissions and characterization parameters of an EUT. These can be combined to obtain a generic equivalent Thevenin/Norton model of the EUT. By a generic Thevenin/Norton equivalent it is understood in this document any characterization of an EUT (<FIG>) of the form of y = Ax + y<NUM>, where y is a column vector of electrical magnitudes taken as responses, x is a column vector of electrical magnitudes taken as excitations, the matrix A encapsulates the response of the equipment to these excitations (contains its characterization parameters), and y<NUM> contains the effect of the conducted emissions. The electrical magnitudes can be any combination of voltages and currents. x, y and y<NUM> can be understood as containing time or frequency characterizations of electrical magnitudes (if time-domain magnitudes are used, Ax must be understood as a matrix convolution). Therefore, the matrix A can be, among others, any of the commonly used parameters (scattering (S) parameters, impedance parameters (Z), admittance parameters (Y), chain scattering or chain transfer (T) parameters, hybrid (H) parameters, chain (ABCD) parameters, etc.) and the column vector y<NUM> could represent series voltage sources, shunt current sources, wave sources, etc. In graphical representations of these parameters, it is common to mix elements from different representations, as in <FIG>, where the series voltage sources would naturally fit in an EUT characterization using a Z parameter matrix, or in <FIG>, where the shunt current sources would naturally fit in a characterization using a Y parameter matrix. Since most matrix characterizations can be transformed one into another, mixed graphical characterizations such as those of <FIG> are also possible. In order to measure an equivalent Thevenin/Norton model of the EUT the instrument simultaneously or sequentially measures the conducted emissions and the characterization parameters of any EUT connected to it, and, with this information, constructs its equivalent model.

The block diagram of the instrument that can perform these measurements is shown in <FIG>, according to an embodiment of the measuring apparatus of the first aspect of the present invention. It is designed to measure an EUT of N ports (if the EUT has less than N ports, some of the ports of the EUT would remain unused; if the EUT has more than N ports, some of the ports of the EUT would remain unmeasured; with this understood, in the following, the EUT will be supposed an N-port device, for the here described embodiments). The instrument consists of an N-port Arbitrary Waveform Generator; a kxN-port Measuring Unit, being k usually <NUM>, <NUM> or <NUM>; N Coupling Networks that inject a signal dependent on the signal generated by the Arbitrary Waveform Generator to the ports of the EUT, and inject a signal dependent of the response of EUT to the aforementioned excitations to the kxN ports of the Measuring Unit. The Processing Unit will perform most of the computations specified below. In the particular embodiment shown in <FIG>, the Coupling Networks include the circuitry typical of a channel of an LISN, since it is intended to characterize the mains or power terminals of the EUT. A different embodiment of the invention designed to characterize other kind of terminals, would not have the Coupling Networks connected to the mains through LISN channels.

The Arbitrary Waveform Generator and the Measuring Unit can work in a base band configuration or include frequency mixers, upconverters, downconverters, etc. The Measuring Unit contains kxN signal measurement devices, which can be actual or equivalent (a multiplexing schema could be used if needed).

The Processing Unit can be embedded into the physical instrument or be hosted in an external PC or the Cloud.

The Coupling Networks can be made in a variety of configurations, none of which refers to a switching matrix. For instance, using power dividers and directional couplers, impedance bridges, circulators, voltage or current probes, etc. This definition means that in such coupling networks all ports are always interconnected (contrary to what can happen in a switching matrix with more inputs than outputs or vice versa, where only those ports placed at the switching position are interconnected).

In order to demonstrate the feasibility of the instrument, it can be modelled as seen in <FIG> and described as follows. In this analysis, <NUM>-port Coupling Networks are supposed, although three-port Coupling Networks would be enough for the analysis performed. In a real implementation, the fourth port could be used, for instance, and with the appropriate Coupling Network, to sense the level of the signals injected by the Arbitrary Waveform Generator. In the following analysis, the Coupling Networks are very general. The analysis is performed in the frequency domain. Since any signal admits either a time-domain or a frequency-domain characterization, the analysis performed is general. For the purpose of the analysis, normalized waves are used, but it is understood that the instrument can measure other kinds of electrical signals (that can be expressed as combinations of normalized waves). For the following analysis, ports <NUM> of the Coupling Networks have a reference impedance equal to the internal impedance of the corresponding Arbitrary Waveform Generator ports. And ports <NUM> and <NUM>, have a reference impedance equal to the input impedance of the corresponding Measuring Unit ports (a value of k = <NUM> is supposed, although the analysis could analogously be performed for other values of k).

The N signal generators of the block diagram of <FIG> can be characterized, without loss of generality, by their open-source voltage Vgi and internal impedance <MAT>, i = <NUM>,. ,N, and the k · N Measuring Unit ports (in <FIG>, 2N) can be characterized, without loss of generality, by their input impedance <MAT> and <MAT>, i = <NUM>,. The Arbitrary Waveform Generator and the Measuring Unit devices are coupled to the EUT ports by means of the N Coupling Networks, characterized again, without loss of generality, by their S-parameter matrix, <MAT>, i = <NUM>,. The following analysis is performed, without loss of generality, under the assumption of two Measuring Unit ports for each EUT port. The analysis could also be performed for an arbitrary number of Measuring Unit devices for each EUT port (/c). In particular, the case of k = <NUM> can be easily taken into account in the following equations by equating the relevant S parameters of the relevant <MAT> matrix to <NUM>.

The following analysis has been performed using a very general definition on normalized waves (and, therefore, of S parameters), as seen in <FIG>. The parameters k and Z<NUM> used for the definition of a normalized wave are indicated below the port. As can be seen, to simplify the computations, the values on the different parameters Z<NUM> used at ports <NUM>, <NUM> and <NUM> of the N Coupling Networks are equal to the internal impedance of the Arbitrary Waveform Generator and the input impedances of the Measuring Unit ports. The values of k and Z<NUM> at their port <NUM> are set to accommodate the desired wave definitions at the port of the EUT.

Let it be the following column vectors, <MAT> with = <NUM>,. If the S parameter matrix of the EUT and Coupling Networks are <MAT> with i = <NUM>,. ,N, let it be the diagonal matrices <MAT> with i = <NUM>,. ,<NUM>, j = <NUM>,. Finally, let it be the diagonal matrices <MAT> with j = <NUM>,.

Then, <MAT> <MAT> <MAT> <MAT> <MAT> <MAT> <MAT> <MAT> From these equations, it follows that <MAT> <MAT> <MAT>.

From these, all other waves (and therefore, the voltages and currents) at all the ports of the circuit of <FIG> can be easily computed.

From these equations, several measurement strategies (time-domain, frequency-domain, mixed-domain, or spread-spectrum) can be envisaged.

For instance, two very basic approaches, which can be enriched at several stages, would be the ones described below.

Suppose an EUT emitting stationary interference. First, the effect of Vn is measured when Vg = <NUM> (a<NUM>M = <NUM>), yielding <MAT> <MAT>.

If then adequately timed (synchronized with the interference or with the <NUM>-Hz mains signal,. ) measurements are performed with Vg ≠ <NUM> (a<NUM>M ≠ <NUM>), the following waves are measured, <MAT> <MAT>.

If N linearly independent (at all frequencies) (column) vectors a<NUM>M,k, k = <NUM>,. ,N are generated, and its responses measured, the following excitation and response matrices (made up of column vectors) can be constructed, <MAT> <MAT> <MAT> with <MAT> <MAT>.

Since A is invertible, SEUT can be computed from either expression. For instance, <MAT>.

Once SEUT is known, Vn can be readily computed.

Example A: Consider the case of a two-port EUT modelled using the characterization of <FIG> (to select one, although any other characterization as described above could be used), that consists of a S-parameter network (SEUT) that characterizes the internal impedance of the EUT (its characterization parameters), and two noise voltage sources (Vn<NUM> and Vn<NUM>) that characterize the interference generated by the EUT. Port <NUM> of the EUT is the line-ground port, and port <NUM> the neutral-ground port. The S parameters used in this example (based on actual measurements) are shown in <FIG>, and the magnitude of the two noise-voltage sources are shown in <FIG>. Some CISPR limits are also plotted only for comparison purposes.

The Coupling Networks considered for the instrument feature each a CISPR-<NUM>50Ω//50µH LISN channel, a limiter attenuator and a directional coupler.

The Measurement steps for this case are:.

Applying this equation to our example, the two voltage noise sources are perfectly recovered, as shown in <FIG>.

After these five steps, all the information to construct the Thevenin equivalent model of the EUT has been obtained.

Now, if the excitation is a spread-spectrum one, with the signal generators generating highly-uncorrelated sequences, all the above measurements could be performed simultaneously. The system would be simultaneously excited by N pseudonoise (PN) sequences and the response of the EUT recorded. Therefore, by performing N · N correlations of all responses by all PN sequences, response column vectors as those described above would be recovered, one for each exciting sequence (although this kind of measurements, and the associated correlations, are time-domain, as before they are characterized by their frequency-domain counterparts for analysis purposes): <MAT> <MAT> <MAT> <MAT>.

In this case, due to the spreading effect of the correlation to signals other than the exciting PN sequence, the terms b<NUM>M<NUM> and b<NUM>M<NUM> would have a low value and could generally be ignored.

Then, the matrices <MAT> <MAT> <MAT> could be constructed (the A matrix is also constructed by appropriately recording the N · N correlation of the input PN sequences, and is, basically, a diagonal matrix at each measurement frequency), and the S-parameters matrix of the EUT could be obtained by <MAT>.

Once SEUT is known, the interference vectors b<NUM>M<NUM> and b<NUM>M<NUM> can be recovered from <MAT> <MAT> this time using the PN excitations and their responses directly to perform the computations. From b<NUM>M<NUM> and b<NUM>M<NUM> the interference vector <MAT> can be obtained.

This schema of measurement has been presented only as an example to demonstrate that simultaneous measurements of all the parameters of a (generalized) Thevenin equivalent can be performed. As in the case of the more conventional measurement schemas described above, other measurement steps could be performed to arrive at the same result. For instance, the interference levels might be recovered first, and then the S-parameters of the circuit, or the generators could generate a superposition of PN sequences to achieve code-diversity in the measurements, or the measurement of interferences and S-parameters could be performed sequentially, among others. As before, this basic measurement schema can be enriched with algorithms and techniques which improve the numerical accuracy of the results (interpolations, multiple measurements,.

Example B: Consider the case of an EUT modelled using the characterization of <FIG>, with the S-parameter network (SEUT) shown in <FIG>, and the two noise voltage sources (Vn<NUM> and Vn<NUM>) shown in <FIG>.

Again, all Coupling Networks considered for the instrument feature a CISPR-<NUM>50Ω//50µH LlSN channel, an attenuator (transient limiter) and a directional coupler.

The two approaches described above are only presented as non-limiting examples of possible measurement strategies. The present invention embraces at least any measurement strategy including the generation and injection of the N test signals described in a previous section of the present document, at least those with the auto-correlation RXX and cross-correlation RXY described above.

Considering the definition given in the previous section of this document for the term Coupling Network, and taking into account the same port numeration shown in <FIG>, some examples of coupling networks are shown in <FIG>.

Specifically, <FIG>) shows a coupling network for a Measuring Unit with a single port (k = <NUM>). This coupling network consists of a voltage follower (a voltage follower is a circuit whose output voltage straight away follows the input voltage).

<FIG>) shows a coupling network for a Measuring Unit with two ports (k = <NUM>). In this case, the coupling network is composed of two voltage followers and a small value resistor. It allows the measurement of both the voltage at the port of the EUT (port <NUM>), and of its current from the voltage drop across the resistor.

<FIG>) shows an example of a coupling network using a transformer.

Finally, <FIG>) shows an example of a coupling network using only a directional coupler. In this case, part of the generated signal in the Arbitrary Waveform Generator goes to the Measuring Unit (port <NUM>), and part to the EUT (port <NUM>). On the other hand, the reflected signal in the EUT, or its conducted emissions, enter via port <NUM> and goes to the Measuring Unit via port <NUM>.

The measuring apparatus of the first aspect of the present invention is more complex and complete than those known in the prior art, with a performance not available by any of them. It not only adds the possibility to simultaneously (or sequentially) measure the Z or Y or S parameters or any other meaningful set of parameters that can be computed from the aforementioned ones or from voltages and currents, and the electromagnetic signals or noise or electromagnetic interference generated by an EUT (or what is the same, its conducted emissions), but it also builds, for some embodiments, the Thevenin or Norton equivalent model and, as a last resort, finds the optimal power-line filter to mitigate the conducted emissions. This apparatus aims to accelerate the design and implementation of electronic EUTs, decreasing their design cost, optimizing its implementation and accelerating their time-to-market.

Claim 1:
A measuring apparatus, comprising:
- an arbitrary waveform generator of N ports, wherein N is a natural number, configured and arranged to generate a combination of N test signals, one per port, and to inject said generated N test signals to the N ports of a coupling network;
- said coupling network configured to couple the N test signals from said arbitrary waveform generator to an equipment under test (EUT) having M ports, where M is equal to, lower than or greater than N, and to couple the responses of the EUT to these N test signals and those signals generated by the EUT itself, to a measuring unit;
- said measuring unit of at least N ports configured and arranged to measure the electrical signals provided by the coupling network; and
- a processing unit configured and arranged to process said N test signals and said measured electrical signals, to obtain:
- the electromagnetic signals or noise or electromagnetic interference (EMI) generated by the EUT at at least some of its ports; and
- the Z or Y or S parameters of the EUT or any other meaningful set of parameters that can be computed from the aforementioned ones or from voltages and currents.