Electrically Covering Microwave Probe for Channels Inspection of AESA of Printed Dipoes

Microwave probe is designed which is useful measurement tool for inspection of AESA individual channels equipped with printed dipole radiating elements. The probe is placed over any one radiating element of flat array antenna, electrically screens the element thus removes mutual coupling in array, and provides radiator input's matching in 10%-width passband. Due to neighboring radiating elements have no influence on the measurement results, a combination of vector network analyzer and the probe can be used to diagnose individual vibrators and check their identity within the array, to measure TX/RX modules' amplitude and phase frequency responses "through the radiator" as well as modules' power output.