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feat(driver): Boonton 4530 Series RF Peak Power Meter #187

Description

@abduznik

Instrument

Boonton 4530 Series RF Peak Power Meter (Model 4531 single-channel / 4532 dual-channel).
Measures CW and pulsed RF power from 10 kHz up to 110 GHz (sensor dependent) with a
video bandwidth up to 20 MHz for pulse analysis. Peak range -40 to +20 dBm, CW range
-70 to +44 dBm (sensor dependent).

Why

  • New vendor: Boonton (Wireless Telecom Group, now part of Maury Microwave) is not
    among the 8 covered vendors, and no Boonton driver exists.
  • New category: the codebase has no RF power meter / peak power meter base class at all
    (base.py defines ElectronicLoad, FrequencyCounter, Multimeter, PowerSupply,
    SpectrumAnalyzer, NetworkAnalyzer, Oscilloscope, SignalGenerator, FunctionGenerator).
    Peak-power measurement is a genuine coverage gap: pulsed RF testing (radar, wireless,
    EMC, production ATE) is exactly what the SA/NA/SG drivers cannot do.
  • Widely used: the 4530 series is a staple in RF production test and repair labs,
    with a large fleet of compatible Boonton sensors covering to 110 GHz.
  • Niche but complementary: unlike queued feat(driver): Yokogawa WT310E Series Digital Power Meter #183 (Yokogawa WT310E, AC/DC power analyzer),
    this is a wideband RF peak power meter -- a different measurement domain.

Protocol

SCPI 1993 over IEEE-488 (GPIB) and RS-232 serial. Full SCPI command tree documented in
the instruction manual (46 SCPI mentions, 83 GPIB mentions, 14 RS-232 mentions across
170 pages). No USB/LAN on this generation -- GPIB/RS-232 only, which fits the existing
pyvisa RealDriver path for VISA-GPIB/ASRL resources.

Programming Manual

https://www.rftesolutions.com/pdf/meters/power_meters/4530--Instruction_Manual.pdf
(170-page instruction manual, verified live: HTTP 200, application/pdf, 1.0 MB).
The official boonton.com copy (Portals/0/Products/RF+Power+Meters/4530/...v20140106.pdf)
now 404s after the Maury Microwave site migration; the mirror above is the reachable copy.

Scope

  • New PowerMeter base class (CW power, peak power, relative offset, sensor selection).
  • Boonton4531 / Boonton4532 drivers registered as PM / PEAKPM (or similar).
  • Peak/pulse measurement: trigger setup, video bandwidth, pulse parameters (prf, width).
  • Digital Twin / simulated mirror alongside the real driver, matching repo convention.

Complexity

Moderate. The SCPI core is plain (measurement queries, units, offsets), but pulse/trigger
modes and sensor-dependent ranges add real surface area. Similar effort to the SR830
Lock-In driver (#180) -- well within reach.

Activity

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