AMTA Paper Archive

The publication of CISPR 16-1-6 [1] in 2107 marked a significant change in the CISPR documents, for the first time the consideration of how to perform antenna pattern measurements in and determine the associated estimate of the uncertainty of those measurement. This is a look at that technique and presentation of how that helps and relates to measurement traceability.

This is a brief comparison between the two recently released documents that detail the methods used for the calibration of antennas intended for use in measuring electromagnetic compatibility.

Phase uncertainty in antenna measurements introduces significant errors to the amplitude of the transformed pattern in Spherical Wave Expansion (SWE). To get a better understanding of the impact of phase errors, the measured phase error of a Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) is synthesized as a random phase error and subsequently added to the measured antenna patterns of three different antennas during the SWE. The resulting erroneous patterns are compared with the measured reference patterns and the error magnitude and probability distribution are studied. It is proven that the introduced errors to the transformed far-field patterns can be substantial. Furthermore, the relation between the antenna type and the error level and distribution is elaborated. The error level is different for the three antennas and the error level distribution is dependent on the mode spectra of the antennas.

A near-field far-field transformation (NFFFT) technique with a plane-wave synthesis is presented for predicting two-dimensional (2D) radar cross sections (RCS) from multistatic near-field (NF) measurements. The NFFFT predicts the FF of the OUT illuminated by each single source, then the plane-wave synthesis predicts the FF of the OUT each illuminated by each plane-wave by synthesizing the FFs given in the NFFFT step. The both steps are performed in the similar computational procedure based on a single-cut NFFFT technique that has been proposed previously. The method is performed at low cost computation because the NF and source positions are required only on a single cut plane. The formulation and validation of the method is presented.

The significant measurement standards in the antenna measurement community all present suggested error analysis strategies and recommendations. However, many of the factors in these analyses are static in nature in that they do not vary with antenna pattern signal level or they deal with specific points in the pattern, such as realized gain, side lobe magnitude error or a derived metric such as on-axis cross polarization. In addition, many of the constituent factors of the error methods are the result of analyses or special purpose data collections that may not be available for periodic measurement. The objective of this paper is to use only a few significant factors to analyze the error bounds in both magnitude and phase for a given antenna pattern, for all levels of the pattern. Most of the standards metrics are errors of amplitude. However, interest is increasing in determining phase errors and, hence, this methodology includes phase error analysis for all factors.

Ambiguous direction-of-arrival estimation is a key problem for uniformly distributed antenna arrays with inter-element spacing exceeding half of the carrier wavelength. The primary reason behind such ambiguity are the grating lobes generated in the radiation patterns due to insufficient spatial sampling. An L-shaped orthogonal arrangement of radiating elements in distributed sub-arrays is an approach that removes grating lobes and consequent ambiguity to a great extent. The reduction of footprint area by distributing the elements across a car also makes it a suitable approach for conformal integration into automotive exterior parts. In order to realize the feasibility of its application in passenger cars, we investigate and evaluate this concept through measurements and digital array signal processing. This paper presents a comparison of L-shaped antenna element arrangements for different spacings between two sub-arrays, as well as a verification of the concept when mounted on a passenger car. For each scenario, the radiation patterns are analyzed and the robustness of the system against a static interferer is verified.

Pyramidal RF absorber, widely used in indoor antenna ranges, is designed to minimize reflectivity by creating an impedance transform from free space to the impedance of the absorber material. The pyramidal shape provides this transition quite well at normal incidence. It has been shown in [1] that pyramidal RF absorber performs very well up to angles of incidence of about 45 degrees off-normal, but at wider angles of incidence, the performance degrades significantly. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to perform RF absorber measurements at large oblique incidence angles. In such measurements, the reflected path and the direct path between the antennas are very close in length, making it difficult to use time-domain gating techniques to eliminate the direct coupling. In this paper, a novel approach for performing oblique RF absorber measurements is introduced based on spectral domain transformations. Preliminary measurements using this technique have been compared to RF simulations. Results appear to indicate that this approach is a valid way to perform RF absorber reflectivity measurements at highly oblique incidence angles.

A simulation-supported measurement campaign was conducted to collect monostatic radar cross section (RCS) data as part of a larger effort to establish the Austin RCS Benchmark Suite, a publicly available benchmark suite for quantifying the performance of RCS simulations. In order to demonstrate the impact of materials on RCS simulation and measurement, various mixed-material targets were built and measured. The results are reported for three targets: (i) Solid Resin Almond: an almond-shaped low-loss homogeneous target with the characteristic length of ~10-in. (ii) Open Tail-Coated Almond: the surface of the solid resin almond's tail portion was coated with a highly conductive silver, effectively forming a resin-filled open cavity with metallic walls. (iii) Closed Tail-Coated Almond: the resin almond was manufactured in two pieces, the tail piece was coated completely with silver coating (creating a closed metallic surface), and the two pieces were joined. The measured material properties of the resin are reported; the RCS measurement setup, data collection, and post processing are detailed; and the uncertainty in measured data is quantified with the help of simulations.

Echodyne has recently completed and qualified a new millimeter-wave antenna measurement system for characterization of beam-steering antennas such as our Metamaterial Electronic Steering Arrays (MESAs). Unlike most far-field systems that employ a standard Phi/Theta or Az/El positioner, we use a six-axis industrial robot that can define an arbitrary AUT coordinate system and center of rotation. In different operational modes, the robot is used as an angular AUT positioner (e.g., Az/El) or configured for linear scan areas. This flexible positioning system allows us to characterize the range illumination and quiet zone reflections without modification to the measurement system. With minor modifications, the system could also be used in a planar-near field configuration. Range alignment can be easily performed by redefining the coordinate system of the AUT movement in software. The approximate 5.2-meter range length is within the radiating near-field of many arrays of interest, so we employ spherical near-field (SNF) correction when necessary, using internally-developed code. Specialty tilted absorber was installed in the chamber to improve quiet zone performance, over standard absorber treatment for similar aspect ratio ranges. Narrower ranges often have specular reflections that exceed 60° and benefit from the specialty tilted absorber designed to reduce the angle of incidence. We present an overview of the measurement system and some initial measurement data, along with lessons learned during design and integration. I. MEASUREMENT SYSTEM OVERIVEW A 7.3m x 3.7m x 3.7m footprint was allocated for the new R&D millimeter-wave antenna measurement chamber. After accounting for structural considerations, the final chamber interior dimensions are 7.1m(L) x 3.45m(W) x 3.35m(H) and the final range length (separation between range antenna and quiet zone center) is about 5.2 m. Table 1 lists the high-level goals of the measurement system are listed in. Table 1. Echodyne R&D chamber goals. Parameter Goal Frequency range 12-40 GHz, with provisions up to 80 GHz Polarization Dual-linear switched or simultaneous AUT positioner Azimuth-over-Elevation and linear scanning Quiet zone size 0.4m(L) x 0.4m(W) x 0.4m(H) Side lobe uncertainty +/-1 dB for-20 dB sidelobe Figure 1 shows the dimensions of the rectangular chamber, which is lined with the special absorber design described in Section II. Figure 2 shows an overview of the measurement system. The RF subsystem consists of a 4-port vector network analyzer (VNA), a Gigatronics GT-1050A power amplifier, a directional coupler (placed after the amplifier) to provide the VNA reference signal and a MVG QR18000 dual-polarized closed boundary quad-ridged horn [1] as the range antenna. This setup provides continuous frequency coverage from 12 to 40 GHz. External frequency converter modules can be used to extend the range further into millimeter wave. Horizontal and vertical polarization are acquired simultaneously by measuring three receiver channels (B, C & R1) and calculating the ratios B/R1 and C/R1 which remove the effects of amplifier drift (such as temperature coefficient). The range antenna is mounted to a rotary stage to allow direct measurement of Ludwig-III polarization if desired (versus polarization synthesis in post-processing). The AUT positioner described in Section III is a six-axis industrial robot that provides both angular azimuth-over-elevation and linear scanning with high-accuracy. Linear scanning allows planar near-field measurements in addition to the quiet zone evaluation shown in Section IV. The 5.2 m range length is within the radiating near-field of many arrays of interest, especially at higher frequencies. For example, even a relatively small (140 mm) AUT would have a 22.5° phase taper across at 40 GHz. We use the spherical near-field measurement correction [2] described in Section V to obtain true far-field patterns in the Az/El coordinates described by the robot motion. Figure 1. Rectangular chamber dimensions (in inches).

In 1987 the author built the world's first Personal Near-field antenna measurement System (PNS). This led to the formation of Nearfield Systems Inc. (NSI) a company that became a major manufacturer of commercial near-field antenna measurement systems. After leaving NSI in 2015 several new personal antenna measurement tools were built including a modern updated PNS. The new PNS consists of a portable XY scanner, a hand held microwave analyzer and a laptop computer running custom software. The PNS was then further generalized into a modular electromagnetic field imaging tool called "Radio Camera". The Radio Camera measures electromagnetic fields as a n-dimensional function of swept independent parameters. The multidimensional data sets are processed with geometric and spectral transformations and then visualized. This paper provides an overview of the new PNS and Radio Camera, discusses operational considerations, and compares it with the technology of the original 1987 PNS. Today it is practical for companies, schools and individuals to build low-cost personal antenna measurement systems that are fully capable of meeting modern industry measurement standards. These systems can be further enhanced to explore and visualize electromagnetic fields in new and interesting ways.

The experimental validation of an accurate and fast near-field-far-field (NF-FF) transformation technique with spherical scan, suitable for long antennas under test (AUTs) mounted in offset configuration, is provided in this work. The main feature of such a NF-FF transformation is to require, unlike the traditional spherical (TS) one, an amount of NF samples, which is minimum and results to be practically the same in both cases of offset and onset mount-ings of the AUT. To this end, an optimal sampling interpolation formula , developed by properly exploiting the non-redundant sampling representations and modeling an offset mounted long AUT by a cylinder ended by two half-spheres, is employed to precisely recover the massive input NF data for the TS NF-FF transformation from the collected non-redundant samples. A considerable measurement time-saving can be so achieved. Experimental results assessing the validity and the practical feasibility of such a technique are shown.

Topologies for hybrid LPDA-broadband-dipole antennas (hybrid antennas) are systematically presented and evaluated regarding their ability to provide symmetric response as defined and required in recent standards. The symmetry property of the hybrid antenna is fundamentally related to the intrinsic infinite balun, the choke structure, and the matching transformer for the broadband dipole, if one is employed. In general, hybrid antennas incorporating matching transformers are more symmetric if the transformer is effectively center-tapped. More specifically, in a hybrid antenna employing an impedance matching transformer derived from an equal-delay hybrid, the sum port can be advantageously connected via a low-impedance load to the center of a symmetric choke arrangement. A specific topology for a hybrid LPDA-broadband-dipole antenna is given here which employs a 1:4 impedance transforming balun between the LPDA and broadband dipole but at the same time provides symmetry such that the antenna satisfies the requirements given in recent standards. Thus, the advantages of the impedance transforming balun are realized, but the symmetry of the antenna is maintained. Finally, it is shown that a hybrid antenna satisfies the symmetry requirements if a 180 • rotation about the bore sight axis is equivalent to a 180 • electrical phase shift in the source and that this behavior is obtained with a combination of 2-fold rotational symmetry in the radiating structure and electrical symmetry in the intrinsic balun structure.

The two scans phaseless technique is a well-known procedure for the characterization of antennas on near-field ranges without need of measuring the phase. Amplitude information over two surfaces compensates for the lack of phase reference. In this paper we propose the combination of spherical and planar surfaces for the application of the two scans technique, together with the application of Wirtinger Flow, a state-of-the art phase retrieval algorithm with high convergence guarantees. The use of different types of surface adds additional information about the field's degrees of freedom, allowing for smaller separation between acquisition surfaces as compared with the 2-sphere techniques. In addition, an initial estimation for the phase is not required. The phase retrieval process is formulated in terms of the Spherical Wave Expansion (SWE) of the antenna under test. The SWE-to-PWE (Plane Wave Expansion) is utilized in order to process the amplitude field on the planar surface. Results for simulated and measured near-field data are shown to demonstrate the potential capabilities of the proposed technique.

Indoor RCS measurement facilities are usually dedicated to the characterization of only one azimuth cut and one elevation cut of the full spherical RCS target pattern. In order to perform more complete characterizations, a spherical experimental layout has been developed at CEA for indoor Near Field monostatic RCS assessment [3]. This experimental layout is composed of a 4 meters radius motorized rotating arch (horizontal axis) holding the measurement antennas while the target is located on a polystyrene mast mounted on a rotating positioning system (vertical axis). The combination of the two rotation capabilities allows full 3D near field monostatic RCS characterization. 3D imaging is a suitable tool to accurately locate and characterize in 3D the main contributors to the RCS. However, this is a non-invertible Fourier synthesis problem because the number of unknowns is larger than the number of data. Conventional methods such as the Polar Format Algorithm (PFA), which consists of data reformatting including zero-padding followed by an inverse fast Fourier transform, provide results of limited quality. We propose a new high resolution method, named SPRITE (for SParse Radar Imaging TEchnique), which considerably increases the quality of the estimated RCS maps. This specific 3D radar imaging method was developed and applied to the fast 3D spherical near field scans. In this paper, this algorithm is tested on measured data from a metallic target, called Mx-14. It is a fully metallic shape of a 2m long missile-like target. This object, composed of several elements is completely versatile, allowing any change in its size, the presence or not of the front and / or rear fins, and the presence or not of mechanical defects, … Results are analyzed and compared in order to study the 3D radar imaging technique performances.

The planar wide-mesh scanning (PWMS) methodology is based on a non-redundant sampling scheme [1], [2] and is thus without loss of accuracy. It has the potential to enable much faster measurements than standard Planar Near Field (PNF) scanning that is based on denser, regular, equally spaced NF sampling fulfilling Nyquist criteria. In [3], the non-redundant methodology has been validated numerically by simulated measurements on a highly shaped reflector antenna and with actual measurements on a pencil beam antenna in Ku-band and on a navigation antenna in L-band. In this paper, we present the experimental verification of the PWMS methodology, at V band using dedicated PNF measurements of a Standard Gain Horn antenna MVG SGH4000. The results accuracy of the non-redundant methodology has been investigated against Far-Field patterns, implemented by standard scanning methods, by visual comparison, and by computation of the Equivalent Noise Level (ENL). The achieved under-sampling factor is equal to 12, corresponding to similar time reduction in the stepped measurement system employed for the presented validation.

An algorithm is developed for the non-destructive extraction of constitutive parameters from uniaxial anisotropic materials backed by a conductive layer. A method of moments-based approach is used in conjunction with a previously-determined Green function. A dominant-mode analysis is done for rapid comparison of the derived forward model with that of commercially-available software. Finally, laboratory measurements are taken to compare this approach to that of a destructive, high-precision method.

The EurAAP (the European Association on Antennas and Propagation) [1] Measurements working group (WG5), constitutes a framework for cooperation to advance research and development of antenna measurements. An important ongoing task of this group is to sustain the Antenna Measurement Intercomparisons. The comparison of each facility measurement of the same reference antenna in a standard configuration results in important documentation and validation of laboratory expertise and competence, allowing to validate and document the achieved measurement accuracy and to obtain and maintain accreditations like ISO 17025. An additional outcome is the improvement in antenna measurement procedures and protocols in facilities and contributions to standards, which is one of the long-term objectives of the EurAAP WG5. Several participants among Europe but also USA and ASIA have joined the activity. These campaigns will also serve for a new task, recently approved within the WG5, of self-evaluation from comparison of the measurement results. An important ongoing campaign involves a X/Ku/Ka-band high gain reflector antenna MVI-SR40 fed by SH4000 Dual Ridge Horn. In this paper we report the results here for the first time. The medium gain ridge horn, MVI-SH800, equipped with an absorber plate to enhance the correlation in different facilities has been the reference antenna of another campaign. In [2] the preliminary results were shown. In this paper we present the final validation. The comparison is reported plotting the gain/directivity patterns and computing the equivalent noise level and the Birge ratio with respect to the reference pattern obtained taking into account the uncertainty declared by each facility.

In this paper, a 3D metal printed dual circular-polarized horn antenna operating in the V-band is proposed, built and tested. This antenna consists of a horn and a circular waveguide, a single groove polarizer and is side-fed by orthogonally placed rectangular waveguide ports. The groove is placed at 45° with respect to the input ports and provides a phase delay of 90° to generate right-or left-hand circular polarization (RHCP or LHCP). The proposed antenna provides symmetric patterns for all planes and exhibits polarization isolation of more than 30 dB at broadside. This antenna is analyzed to realize wide impedance matching bandwidth and wide 3dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidth. A prototype of the horn antenna has been fabricated using 3D metal printing technology. Metal material with finite surface roughness is considered when modeling this antenna.

Accurately measuring the polarization of an antenna is a topic that has garnered much interest over many years. Methods abound including phase-referenced measurements using two orthogonal polarizations, phase-less measurements using two or three pairs of orthogonal polarizations, spinning linear probe measurements, and the rigorous three-antenna polarization method. In spite of the many publications on the topic, polarization measurements are very challenging and can easily lead to confusion, particularly in accurately determining the sense of polarization. In this paper, we describe a method of accurately and rapidly measuring the polarization of an antenna with the aid of a multi-channel measurement receiver and a dual-polarized probe. The method acquires phase-referenced measurements of two orthogonal polarizations. To enable such measurements, we describe a methodology for calibrating the probe. We also describe a tool for automating the polarization measurement and display of the polarization state. By automating the process, it is hoped that the common challenges and confusions associated with polarization measurements may be largely obviated.

Reducing near-field measurement times is an important challenge for future antenna measurement systems. We propose to incorporate knowledge about material parameters of the antenna measurement environment within the simulation model. To do so, a method-of-moments code with surface discretization is implemented as a side constraint to the near-field far-field transformation problem performed with the fast irregular antenna field transformation algorithm. Transformation and source reconstruction results of synthetic measurement data demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.