Required Equipment in Antenna Measurements

For antenna test equipment, we will attempt to illuminate the test antenna (often called an Antenna-Under-Test) with a plane wave. This will be approximated by using a source (transmitting) antenna with known radiation pattern and characteristics, in such a way that the fields incident upon the test antenna are approximately plane waves The required equipment for antenna measurements include: A source antenna and transmitter - This antenna will have a known pattern that can be used to illuminate the test antenna A receiver system - This determines how much power is received by the test antenna A positioning system - This system is used to rotate the test antenna relative to the source antenna, to measure the radiation pattern as a function of angle.

The Source Antenna should of course radiate well at the desired test frequency. It must have the desired polarization and a suitable beamwidth for the given antenna test range. Source antennas are often horn antennas, or a dipole antenna with a parabolic reflector. The Transmitting System should be capable of outputting a stable known power. The output frequency should also be tunable (selectable), and reasonably stable (stable means that the frequency you get from the transmitter is close to the frequency you want). The Receiving System simply needs to determine how much power is received from the test antenna. This can be done via a simple bolometer, which is a device for measuring the energy of incident electromagnetic waves. The receiving system can be more complex, with high quality amplifiers for low power measurements and more accurate detection devices.

 The Positioning System controls the orientation of the test antenna. Since we want to measure the radiation pattern of the test antenna as a function of angle (typically in spherical coordinates), we need to rotate the test antenna so that the source antenna illuminates the test antenna from different angles. The positioning system is used for this purpose. Once we have all the equipment we need (and an antenna we want to test), we'll need to place the equipment and perform the test in an antenna range, the subject of the next section.

 The first thing we need to do an antenna measurement is a place to perform the measurement. Maybe you would like to do this in your garage, but the reflections from the walls, ceilings and floor would make your measurements inaccurate. The ideal location to perform antenna measurements is somewhere in outer space, where no reflections can occur. However, because space travel is currently prohibitively expensive, we will focus on measurement places that are on the surface of the Earth. There are two main types of ranges, Free Space Ranges and Reflection Ranges. Reflection ranges are designed such that reflections add together in the test region to support a roughly planar wave. We will focus on the more common free space ranges.