System Planning Corporation (SPC) announced the Cheetah line of instrumentation radar measurement systems, based on the new Agilent PNA series of network analyzers. SPC recently became an Agilent Channel Partner, providing more insight and information on the PNA line as applied to these types of systems. In addition, SPC has access to in-depth training and engineering assistance on the PNA and other Agilent microwave systems.
SPC's Cheetah incorporates RF gating circuitry and amplifiers, providing a fully-controllable radar front-end for RCS and antenna measurements from 0.1 to 67 GHz. In addition, the system's two identical signal and reference receive channels permit simultaneous co- and cross-polarization measurements. A built-in synthesizer permits operation without the addition of costly external synthesizers. Cheetah's user-friendly interface is provided by CompuQuest's 1541 Data Acquisition and Data Analysis Processing Software.
This new product line offers reduced cost and improved performance over current network analyzer based systems using the HP 8530, 8510, and others. Cheetah provides increased sensitivity, as well as measurement speeds one to two orders of magnitude faster than older systems.