Carrier Frequency Determination and Electric Field Strength Estimation Based on Dual-Channel Differential Attenuation

To address the difficulty of simultaneously performing carrier frequency measurement and electric field strength estimation in broadband transient electromagnetic pulse measurement, this paper proposes a pulse parameter measurement method based on dual-channel differential attenuation characteristics. With the signal received by a single antenna as the input, two measurement channels with different amplitude-frequency responses are constructed. By extracting the differential characteristics of the same pulse in the two channels and establishing a frequency mapping relationship, carrier frequency measurement over the 1–18 GHz band is achieved. On this basis, equivalent electric field strength estimation is accomplished by combining detector calibration, link frequency response compensation, and antenna factor conversion. Injection-based equivalent experiments were carried out to verify the performance of the proposed system. The results show that, within the equivalent electric field strength range of 48 V/m to 1.43 kV/m, the system can realize carrier frequency measurement for pulses in the 1–18 GHz band, with an average root mean square error (RMSE) of 281 MHz. In addition, the relative standard deviation (RSD) and RMSE in dB of the electric field strength measurement are generally low, indicating good stability and accuracy. Further analysis shows that the measurement accuracy is significantly affected by input power and pulse width, and the error increases under low-power, low-frequency, and short-pulse-width conditions. Effective measurement can be achieved when the pulse width is no less than 90 ns. Without full waveform reconstruction or precise calibration of the system impulse response, the proposed method enables simultaneous measurement of carrier frequency and equivalent electric field strength for broadband transient electromagnetic pulses, providing a low-complexity engineering approach for rapid acquisition of key parameters..