Patent ID: 7309994

Claim:
A directional bridge for measuring propagated signals to and from a source device from and to, respectively, a load device where both the source device and the load device are in signal communication with the directional bridge, the directional bridge comprising: a first bridge circuit; and a first sensing element in signal communication with the first bridge circuit, wherein the first sensing element produces a first measured signal that is proportional to the propagated signals, wherein the first bridge circuit includes a first impedance element in signal communication with the source at a first node and the first sensing element at a second node, a second impedance element in signal communication with the source and first impedance element at the first node and in signal communication with the first sensing element at a third node, and a third impedance element in signal communication with the second impedance element and the first sensing element at the third node, and wherein the first measured signal is produced by the first sensing element in response to detecting a difference in voltage between a first voltage at the third node and a second voltage at the second node, wherein the first measured signal is proportional to the propagated signal from the source to the load or to the propagated signal from the load to the source, and wherein the first sensing element is selected from the group consisting of passive transformer, diode, power sensing device, balun, differential amplifier, mixer, and sampler.