Summary

1. May1004 Automatic Antenna Measurement System • Abstract • The Automatic Antenna Measurement System allows its users to collect data efficiently which will allow more time for data analysis. This system has many components involved. These are: • postioner, the rail that moves the antenna. • power meter, the device that measure the power received at the antenna. • anechoic chamber, area were electromagnetic energy is significantly dissipated. • This system allows EE417/EE517 students to study effects antenna design. Problem The current system runs on an older computer which has an operating system of Windows 98. This software can be confusing at times and lacks features. On the current system, there are two serial ports that are used to connect and control the antenna and power meter. With using two serial ports, this would limit the computer that could be upgraded. Another issue with this system is saving data. The current system is not on the network or does not have USB port for quick saving data. Solution We studied the existing software that was given to us from Prof. Jiming Song. We used Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 to write new programs that had the same basic functions and new features on the new operating system. Also we upgraded the power meter interface to USB. This frees up a serial port which will allow more computers able to use the system. With this upgrade, users will be able to save data or email data to others. Hardware Layout • Requirements • Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Requirements: • Supported Operating Systems: • Windows Server 2003; Windows Server 2008; Windows Vista; Windows XP • Processor : 400 MHz Pentium processor or equivalent (Minimum); • 1GHz Pentium processor or equivalent (Recommended) • RAM : 96 MB (Minimum); 256 MB (Recommended) • Hard Disk : Up to 500 MB of available space may be required • CD or DVD Drive : Not required • Display: • 800 x 600, 256 colors (Minimum); 1024 x 768 high color, 32-bit (Recommended) • Hardware Requirements: • One open serial port • At least one open USB The positioner contains gears which change the movement and switches to prevent damage to itself. These are necessary to keep in mind while designing new software. The power meter contains the detector and the power meter and using the new the interface which is GPIB. Overview To simplify the overall system a conceptual sketch is seen to the left. When the software is started, the window on the left allows the user to verify the settings of the positioner and meter settings. Settings will be saved for the next time the software is opened. This allows quicker start up times because generally the settings will be the same from a previous time. This window that displays the data. You can zoom in and out with a click of the mouse. The user can choose the different scales by clicking the on the buttons. Options that will be added yet are the printing options and the print button. The window above is where the user can access all the features. Here, the user sets parameters such as acceleration, speed, and distance. This program uses ideas of the previous software to allow the positioner movements. If a mistake is made in the previous start up window, changes can be made through the menu. This window contains the options of the plot. User can choose to view reference lines such as x = 0. You can change the scaling. Technical Implement The EE 417/517 Lab in which we conducted our testing and implementation consists of a Agilent Power meter, the rail and positioner, and the computer on which we tested our program. We set the power reading to 10.3 W in order to find a reading, but initially is set to 0 W. We had to be able to debug and fix software issues, check to see if the power meter and positioner were both functional and in good condition. Project Schedule Summary We had used and the need to learn and implement using the software of Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 into our system upgrade. The report documents our start from how we were given lab documents from our advisor and had to learn the software Visual Studio 2008 to where we began writing our program using that Visual Basic .NET and the process of demoing and debugging the software. Major issues that were encountered are included in this design report which refers to the debugging issues and system compatibility. Major issues that were needed to be resolved included problems of interfacing and making sure that the automatic measurement system was successful in moving the antenna in a desired manner. Team Members Eric Arnold(EE) Mike Ho(EE) Seok Kang(EE) Faculty Advisor Jiming Song Website http://seniord.ece.iastate.edu/may1004