Active filters tuning interface

A complete system for automated control and test of RF tunable circuits is presented in this paper. The proposed system has been conceived to calibrate and tune variable active filters, but without lack of generality, it is suitable to be used for any voltage-controlled active circuit. It is based on a hardware interface and a dedicated optimization software based on a modified version of the Differential Evolution. The device that has been conceived requires a Vector Network Analyzer (VNA), which is used to acquire the S-parameters of the Device Under Test (DUT) and a computation platform (a personal computer, for instance). The system reads the current measurements and acts on the circuit control voltages optimizing its transfer function accordingly to the desired calibration goals. Test and measurements have shown the capability of the system to achieve good performances in terms of convergence speed and accuracy.