A NEW ROBUST METHOD FOR SIX - PORT REFLECTOMETER CALIBRATION 1 A New Robust

| This article presents a new robust method for nding the parameters of Engen's six-port to four-port reduction algorithm for six-port reeectometer calibration. Like other previously published methods, it uses a minimum of ve loads with an unknown but constant absolute value of the reeection coeecient and unknown but well-distributed phases. However, the quality of the parameter estimates is improved, especially in noisy environments, by eeciently eliminating cases in which these earlier methods may become ill-conditioned. The new method has been used successfully to calibrate a newly developed six-port reeectome-ter in GaAs MMIC technology working between 1.3 GHz and 3.0 GHz.