Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Simultaneous Imaging and Precision Alignment of Two mm Wave Antennas Based on Polarization-Selective Machine-Vision

Published

Author(s)

Joshua A. Gordon, David R. Novotny

Abstract

In this paper, we present an optical imaging tool, the Overlay Imaging Aligner (OIA), developed to aid in the mechanical alignment of antenna components in the mm-wave and low-THz frequency regimes (50–500 GHz) where the millimeter and sub millimeter wavelengths pose significant alignment challenges. The OIA uses a polarization-selective machine-vision approach to generate two simultaneous and overlaid real-time digital images along a common axis; this allows for aligning two antenna components to within fractions of a wavelength in the mm-wave and THz frequency regimes. The overall concept, optical design, function, performance characteristics and application examples are presented. A quantitative assessment of the alignment accuracy achievable with the OIA at specific frequencies in the WR-2.2 band is made where the alignment achieved with the OIA is compared to an electrical alignment.
Citation
IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques
Volume
61
Issue
11

Keywords

alignment, antenna, machine vision, millimeter wave, terahertz, waveguide

Citation

Gordon, J. and Novotny, D. (2012), Simultaneous Imaging and Precision Alignment of Two mm Wave Antennas Based on Polarization-Selective Machine-Vision, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, [online], https://doi.org/10.1109/TIM.2012.2202190 (Accessed October 8, 2024)

Issues

If you have any questions about this publication or are having problems accessing it, please contact reflib@nist.gov.

Created November 1, 2012, Updated November 10, 2018