Automated calibration and data reduction technique for electrically small electromagnetic field sensors

An automatic technique for calibrating electrically small electromagnetic field sensors utilizing a transmission cell is presented. The standard field method was chosen for this application because of the increased accuracy and the elimination of intermediate steps in the process necessary to implement a fast automatic calibration technique. The standard field is produced by utilizing a transverse electromagnetic (TEM) transmission cell. Also presented is a method of reducing the sensor calibration data to fewer than ten numbers while maintaining a high degree of accuracy. The data reduction technique can be expected to yield errors of less than 2 dB over two decades of frequencies and field strengths. The automatic calibration and data reduction techniques are demonstrated on a diode-loaded dipole antenna system