Time/Space vs Frequency VNA measurements

[jkassot]

There are several cases where VNA measurements need to be taken at a single frequency over time or space instead of frequency. For example, when testing a multi-element (phased array) antenna and need to check amplitude and phase (S21) from feed point to each element and/or reverse. Would it be possible to select first a single Frequency and Power setting and then select: (a) either a Time period of measurement (in Seconds) or (b) a number of discrete measurement steps (and advance manually from one to next) ? You would then need to rescale the x-axis to accommodate the selected time period (in sec) or the number of discrete steps. You could also ask user specify the number of samples to average at each step. Finally, save the measurement to a text delimited file format for further processing, like Near-to-Far field transformation by MATLAB. If such a measurement mode could be possible, would open for xaVNA a whole new range of applications that are not found at any low-cost VNAs.

[xaxaxa]

The way the UI code is structured right now it would be difficult to implement an axis other than frequency, but I think this is a good use case for libxavna; you can use the C api: https://github.com/xaxaxa-dev/vna/tree/master/libxavna and just skip frequency sweeping. For the plotting there is a minimal example using QT graphs here: https://github.com/xaxaxa-dev/vna/tree/master/vna_diagtool which can be a starting point

[cbalint13]

I believe that by exporting some API of xaVNA to some higer level languages e.g. python would be wiser and would cover more universal scenarios.

Some small script examples (e.g. python) would allow users to craft their own custom workflow and export measurments as they wish. Perhaps even connect with libs like matplotlib for graph out custom data in any flavour.

I am willing to contribute a wrapper to python for some basic functions with some basic ilustrative usage examples but need first cmake infrastructure to ease the process of wrapping. See PR #17.

[jkassot]

Are there any developments with regards to a Python wrapper for the C/C++ libraries? That would help a lot.

[cbalint13]

On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 5:04 PM jkassot notifications@github.com wrote:

Are there any developments with regards to a Python wrapper for the C/C++ libraries? That would help a lot.

Hi Jkassot,

I work in progress on that, ETA ~1 month and will be done.

[jkassot]

Fantastic! Thanks!

On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 4:30 PM Balint Cristian notifications@github.com wrote:

On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 5:04 PM jkassot notifications@github.com wrote:

Are there any developments with regards to a Python wrapper for the C/C++ libraries? That would help a lot.

Hi Jkassot,

I work in progress on that, ETA ~1 month and will be done.

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[jkassot]

Any update on the python library by cbalint13?