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Ultra Wide Band systems show promises in high data rate radio communications. However, these systems interfere with other communication protocols like the WLAN. To solve this problem, current works propose the insertion of thin half wavelength slots in the antenna structures, thus creating filtering antennas. Many criteria were used to characterize the filtering of these antennas, like the measurement of the VSWR, the return loss, or the maximum gain of the antenna versus frequency. In this paper, we show by studying the 3D gain pattern of these antennas that their filtering is not just dependent on the frequency but it also depends on the radiation direction, due to the radiation of the slots. Then we propose efficiency measurement as the best way to quantify the filtering of these omnidirectional antennas independently of the radiation direction. Two filtering antennas were characterized using a modified wideband Wheeler Cap efficiency measurement method.
This measurement paper presents the methodology used in the characterization of a short, broadband, High Frequency (HF) mobile antenna operating in the frequency range from 1.8 to 30 MHz. The antenna patterns were measured while the antenna was mounted on a High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV). Pattern and performance predictions were made using the Numeric Electromagnetic Code (NEC) Pro 2 Version 5 before the field tests. Stimulation of the AUT was done with the use of a large magnetic loop to minimize AUT pattern perturbations. An attempt was made to measure gain profiles by comparisons to a monopole, ground based, resonating at the center of HF band (15 MHz). Measurement results provided the performance of the antenna in a mounted profile and the pattern distortions produced by the host vehicle.
A recent project to develop and optimize the RF reflectivity of a Composite/nano-material, X-band reflector was pursued by a team lead at AFRL – RF Technology Branch. This was accomplished by iterative testing and signal pattern measurements performed at the AFRL-Rome Laboratory that provided critical feedback affecting the laminate design and configuration of the composite reflector. Testing of multiple configurations of composite reflectors provided data that was key to successful progression throughout the product engineering cycle, and accomplished the following milestones: . Initial performance verification . Characterization of influential material constituents . Optimization of design Eclipse Composites Engineering, along with metallic nano-material supplier Metal Matrix Composites worked to develop a composite dish with reflective properties identical to the baseline metallic reflector model. Through various methods of testing, the reflective influence of each material constituent was characterized and the relative effect within the overall composite laminate was modeled. Based on initial measurements, prototype articles were fabricated for testing and comparative evaluation. This project demonstrates the critical feedback loop between measurement/testing and design/development leading to the successful production of a segmented composite reflector that is lighter weight, more durable, with increased performance in the field to support today’s military and commercial operations.
The near-field aperture distribution excited on the guiding surface of various planar leaky-wave antenna designs is examined. The investigated antennas (for millimeter wave applications) are realized by circular, straight and elliptical metallic strip gratings on a high permittivity dielectric substrate. With such straight and curvilinear grating configurations, analytical determination of the near-field, and hence the leaky-wave phase and attenuation constants along the guiding surface, can be mathematically intensive. To assist in such complex characterizations, the near-field/far-field extrapolation techniques can provide insight and thus illustrate such 2- D aperture field distributions. Specifically, by taking the inverse Fourier transform of measured 2D far-field beam patterns, the near-field distribution along the aperture can be estimated.
Measurement of the antenna pattern of the Haystack Auxiliary Radar (HAX), an experimental Ku band radar system developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory for deep space experimentation, was recently carried out utilizing a ground based, mobile recording system. The HAX radar system uses a 12.19 m parabolic antenna placed inside of a radome which is located on Millstone Hill in Westford, Massachusetts. The recording system, which includes a Ku-band analog front end and a high-speed digitizer with 500 MHz instantaneous bandwidth and long duration recording capability, was located at the summit of Mt. Wachusett, 36.1 km southwest of HAX. Several azimuth and elevation antenna pattern cuts were acquired by transmitting towards a wide-band ground based recording system placed down range while rotating the HAX antenna. Throughout these pattern measurements the radar was operated in a reduced power pulsed CW mode. Continuous wide-band recordings from the slowly scanned pattern measurements were taken and the data was processed to detect individual pulses, retaining only the portions of the recordings containing detected pulses. Post-processing of the pulsed CW data allowed for measurement of the antenna pattern with a significant dynamic range, characterizing both the mainbeam of this antenna and the far-out sidelobes.
Electromagnetic Anechoic Chamber has recently been built by Alenia Aeronautica at Caselle South Plant: The Anechoic Chamber is a full anechoic chamber, and it has been designed to carry out electromagnetic vulnerability tests mainly on fighter and unmanned aircraft. In addition measurement can be carried out on many different vehicles that can be brought into the chamber through the main access door. A system to extract exhaust gas was installed in order to carry out tests on a wide variety of vehicles. The Anechoic Chamber has been designed to carry out both HIRF/EMC test and High Sensitivity RF measurement: in particular HIRF/EMC tests in the frequency range 30MHz ÷ 18GHz with the capability of radiating a very high intensity electromagnetic field and High Sensitivity RF measurement, including antenna pattern measurements on antennas installed on aircraft in the frequency range 500MHz ÷ 18GHz. During the design phase a 1/12th scale model of the chamber had been fabricated to assess the desired electromagnetic performance. In this phase of design the model was tested at the scale frequencies for Filed Uniformity, Site Attenuation and Free Space VSWR results. This study was published at the AMTA 2004 meeting. In addition to the physical model, during the construction phase, various computer simulations were performed to further define the detailed internal absorber layout and to define test acceptance methods for procedures not covered by the standards. The computer model analysis was conducted to identify areas of scattering that could be treated with higher performance absorbers to improve the chambers quiet zone performance. The identified “Fresnel Zones." have been treated with high performance absorbers optimized to provide improved performance at microwave frequencies. The absorber optimization was reported at the AMTA 2006 meeting. This optimization has allowed validation of the chamber according to the requirements of CIRSP 16-1-4 2007-02 in the range of frequency 30 MHz - 18GHz. The size (shield to shield) of chamber is 30m wide, 30m long and 20m high, and the 18m wide by 8.5m high main door allows the SUT access. The shielded structure is a welded structure of 3mm-thick steel panels which guarantees shielding effectiveness of more than 100 dB in the frequency range 100 kHz to 20GHz. The chamber includes a 10 meter diameter turntable to rotate a 30 ton SUT with an angular accuracy of ± 0.02° and a pathway to allow SUT access. Both the pathway and the turntable are permanently covered by ferrite tiles. A hoist system permits lifting of the SUT (max 25 tons) up to 10 meters from the turntable centre enabling EMC testing on aircraft with the landing gear retracted.
Wireless network adapters are now standard in most notebook computers. These network adapters are typically compliant with at least IEEE 802.11a/b/g and often include IEEE 802.11n. This requires that the antenna subsystem of the notebook computer operate at both 2.4 GHz and 5.25 GHz. The antennas used in the wireless system of a notebook computer are themselves small, but they are incorporated into a much larger device. It is unclear exactly what range length is required in order to make accurate pattern and radiated power measurements. This paper reports on a series of measurements made at different range lengths with the goal of determining the minimum range length required for acceptable measurements of radiation patterns and total radiated power (TRP).
Previous AMTA papers have discussed pulsed antenna measurements and the importance of parameters such as pulse width, pulse repetition frequency (PRF) and receiver dynamic range in determining the appropriate technique for performing pulsed measurements. Typically, the pulse width and PRF determine the IF bandwidth required of the instrumentation receiver to achieve a specific level of receiver performance. Less emphasis has been given to the receiver timing and synchronization required to achieve optimum performance for a full pulsed antenna measurement scenario. This paper will discuss receiver timing considerations and show examples of scan time performance during high-speed pulsed measurements. Inter-pulse and intra-pulse measurements will be compared with respect to their impact on measurement time. Pulse profile measurements will be examined to show the importance of a fast synchronous receiver for sub-microsecond pulse characterization. Pulsed antenna pattern results will also be presented and compared with CW measurements.
Currently there is a lack of facilities capable of measuring the full upper hemisphere radiation patterns of antennas mounted on an infinite ground plane. Measurements performed with a finite ground plane suffer diffraction interference from the truncated edges. To circumvent this problem, a new measurement setup was developed at the Ohio State University ElectroScience Laboratory (ESL) for fully characterizing upper hemisphere radiation gain patterns and polarization for antennas up to 4” in diameter from 1-18 GHz. A probe antenna is positioned 46” away from the antenna under test (AUT). The ground plane end diffractions are removed using time-domain gating. The key design consideration is to position the probe antenna in the far-field region and yet shorter than the radius of the ground plane. This paper will present the calibration procedure necessary for the measurement system and it’s limitations due to ground plane probe antenna coupling at low elevation angles. In addition, the complete radiation pattern of a 4” monopole measured from 1-5.5GHz to demonstrate the systems capability for the lower third of the systems operating frequency range.
This paper gives a detailed account of free space Voltage Standing Wave Ratio (VSWR) method. We first review the formulations and terms commonly used in this method. We then discuss errors involved in its direction determination of extraneous signals, contrasting them among plane wave, spherical wave and specular reflection. We highlight issues relating to its application in anechoic chamber electromagnetic performance. Also discussed is the practice of data processing through analyzing a measured VSWR pattern.
An efficient algorithm for calculating the position of the phase center of an antenna from a measurement is derived and implemented in software. Application of the algorithm to actual measurements shows that the success of the algorithm depends on characteristics of the antenna and a weighing parameter derived from the amplitude pattern.
This paper describes the development of a test procedure for OMNI directional antenna pattern measurements in Compact Antenna Test Facility (CATF). This study is also of importance as it was presumed that OMNI directional antennas can not be tested in ISAC-CATF due to reflections coming from high-rise metallic structure of DUT positioner. As in ISAC-CATF, DUT positioner is not at all covered with the RF absorbers. Further, effect of Spacecraft body on radiation pattern is also studied. In addition to that effect of high-rise metallic structure of DUT positioner is also presented. It was observed that due to spacecraft body ripples were generated in the radiation pattern of OMNI directional antenna. It was also observed that effect of high-rise metallic structure of DUT positioner was not as significant as of Spacecraft body. At the end of this study, to exactly simulate the integrated spacecraft level condition a 33 dB coupler was connected at antenna output port and measurements were performed with the help of coupled port. Those results are also presented in this paper.
A probe-compensated near-field-to-far-field transform algorithm has been developed that can generate far-field patterns from near-field measurements made on an arbitrary surface. We present the concept, the algorithm, and computer simulated and measured test results for measurements on a conical surface. The prototype conical near-field measurements were made in a planar near-field range on a horn antenna under test (AUT) mounted on an azimuth-over-elevation positioner to produce a conical measurement surface. This system is especially applicable for producing full-hemisphere far-field patterns for antennas mounted on vehicles where other standard measurement systems may not adapt to the profile well, may not provide full-hemisphere coverage, or may require large, mechanically complex systems.
Traditional passive antenna measurements result in well-known quantities like Directivity, Efficiency, and Gain. However, when testing over-the-air (OTA) performance of active devices, there are additional effects that cannot be lumped together as part of the antenna performance. Terms like gain and efficiency are defined based on transmit or receive signal levels at the antenna port relative to the radiation pattern of the device. Thus, OTA performance is often assumed to be equivalent to the conducted performance of the device combined with the passive radiation pattern. However, when that antenna port is attached to an active radio in a typical wireless device, interactions between the circuitry and the antenna can produce results that do not match that predicted by the conducted performance and the passive radiation pattern. The difference between the predicted and actual performance of a device can be quantified in terms of "interaction factors", which represent the often non-linear behavior of the active circuitry when operating in an OTA environment. These factors include such effects as variation in amplifier gain due to heating caused by antenna mismatch, and receiver desensitization due to platform noise that couples through the antenna of the device. This paper will discuss the concept of interaction factors and define a number of sub-components of these factors that may be useful in predicting the level of some interaction factors.
Calibration of planar near field probes is generally required to obtain accurate cross-polarization measurements of satellite antennas; however, probe calibration is costly and time consuming. One way to avoid probe calibration is to ignore the probe cross-polarization and use the probe co-polarized patterns alone for probe correction. Then the probe can be easily characterized by standard, in-house measurements or by analytical models. Of course, if the probe cross-polarization is ignored, additional errors are introduced in the co- and cross-polarized pattern measurements, but the errors can be manageable, depending on the probe and Antenna-Under-Test (AUT) polarization properties. Complete formulas and/or tables for near field measurement errors for three popular measurement configurations are presented, along with experimental verification of the error estimates for one case.
A novel approach using Artificial Neural network (ANN) is proposed to identify the number of faulty elements present in a uniform linear array consisting faults in multiple elements. The input to the neural network is amplitude of deviation pattern and output is the number of faulty elements. In this work, ANN is implemented with three different algorithms; Radial Basis Function neural network (RBF), Generalised Regression neural network (GRNN) and Probabilistic neural network and their performance is compared. The network is trained with some of the possible faulty deviation patterns and tested with various measurement errors. It is demonstrated that the method gives a success rate of 93.4%.
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. The experimental layout is composed of a motorized rotating arch (horizontal axis) holding the measurement antennas. 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. Two bipolarization monostatic RF transmitting and receiving antennas are driven by a fast network analyser : - an optimised phased array antenna for frequencies from 800 MHz to 1.8 GHz - a wide band standard gain horn from 2 GHz to 12 GHz. This paper describes the experimental layout and the numerical post processing computation of the raw RCS data. Calibrated RCS results of a canonical target are also presented and the comparison with compact range RCS measurements is detailed.
The present paper introduces a lower frequency design for the open boundary quadridge horn (OBQH) introduced in [1]. This new horn cover the UHF band and it is usable up to 6GHz. It exhibits a fairly uniform radiation pattern at the upper end of its range as well as a fairly flat gain as was the case with the higher frequency design. The increased frequency band up to 6GHz is accomplished by the use of a ferrite filled cavity that maintains a good VSWR even when the feed cavity is reduced to avoid higher order modes that cause the main beam of the pattern to split. As with the higher frequency design this horn can be used as a source in antenna pattern measurement chambers and even reflectors. As a second part to the paper some data is presented on the use of the S to Ku Band OBQH as a feed for reflectors used in Radio-Astronomy [2]. The results show that by placing the OBQH in an absorber lined cavity the pattern improves and the feed becomes more effective.
Boumans [1] has introduced an alternative to the classical (Advanced) Antenna Pattern Correction (A)APC method by moving the range feed in the focal plane of a Compact Antenna Test Range (CATR) instead of moving the Device Under Test (DUT) around in the Quiet Zone (QZ). The advantages are clear: it is easier (cost and accuracy wise) to implement a feed scanner than a DUT scanner; the method can be used for azimuth and elevation patterns and it can even be implemented using multiple feed horns to get to the same measurement time as with a single range feed. The capabilities of defocused measurements in the Compact Payload Test Range (CPTR) at ESA/ESTEC have been previously assessed [2] and they revealed a triply reflected ray [2] and a QZ ripple induced by periodic surface inaccuracies [3]. This paper focuses on verifying the performance of the Focal Plane AAPC method for these effects. Use has been made of the well known DTU-ESA VAST-12 antenna [3].
A new antenna diagnostics technique has been developed for the DTU-ESA Spherical Near-Field Antenna Test Facility at the Technical University of Denmark. The technique is based on the transformation of the Spherical Wave Expansion (SWE) of the radiated field, obtained from a spherical near-field measurement, to the Plane Wave Expansion (PWE), and it allows an accurate reconstruction of the field in the extreme near-field region of the antenna under test (AUT), including the aperture field. While the fundamental properties of the SWE-to-PWE transformation, as well as the influence of finite measurement accuracy, have been reported previously, we validate here the new antenna diagnostics technique through an experimental investigation of a commercially available offset reflector antenna, where a tilt of the feed and surface distortions are intentionally introduced. The effects of these errors will be detected in the antenna far-field pattern, and the accuracy and ability of the diagnostics technique to subsequently identify them will be investigated. Real measurement data will be employed for each test case.