Theory and practice for a spherical-scan near-field antenna range

Abstract

A spherical-scan near-field antenna range is described. The procedure for real-time data processing is outlined. Relations for the number of data points, largest aspect angle measured, and data acquisition and processing times as a function of the antenna diameter-to-wavelength ratio and the measurement distance are given. Experimental results are presented for an antenna enclosed by a minimum sphere having a diameter of 240 wavelengths. All the equations for the spherical wave analysis, probe correction, and radial transformation are provided in appendices in numerically convenient form without the use of any special functions.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>