Validation of a computational electromagnetic model of a boeing 707 aircraft by comparison to scale model measurements

Abstract

The validation of electromagnetic simulations of the installed performance of 30 to 500 MHz blade antennas on a Boeing 707 aircraft is discussed in this paper. The reference antenna pattern data for the validation is obtained from measurements made on a 1:25 scale model of a Boeing 707 aircraft. The blade antennas are modeled by means of broadband and resonant monopoles. The yaw, roll and pitch patterns as measured on a 500 m long ground reflection antenna range are described. A numerical model of the Boeing 707 was developed in the electromagnetic software package FEKO. It was found that taking into account slight differences in modeling and tolerances in the measurement setup, the measured results compared very well to the simulated results thereby validating the simulations.