Flexible and Deployable Antenna Measurement System

Abstract

The paper proposes an innovative deployable measurement system for large antennas. By taking advantage of new approaches and technologies to move the probe within a large volume space, the presented system will be really flexible and able to perform conventional Near Field (NF) measurements (i.e., spherical, planar, cylindrical) and non standard scanning surfaces. The proposed approach will exploit a free moving probe system coupled to a laser-tracker and a software solution able to perform Near Field to Far Field transformation that includes also the probe-compensation and phase recovery in a direct way. Preliminary results are provided to show the potentials of the system, through a Near Field data set acquisition, which is then transformed to the Far Field to compare the final antenna performance.