A High-Resolution Antenna Diagnostics Technique for Spherical Near-Field Measurements

A new diagnostics technique for spherical near-field antenna measurements, that can provide a high spatial resolution of the reconstructed aperture field, is presented. This technique is realized by transforming the spherical wave expansion (SWE) of the radiated field into the corresponding plane wave expansion (PWE), recovering a significant part of the invisible region of the plane wave spectrum. Through the inverse Fourier transform (IFT), the field on a plane outside as well as inside the antenna minimum sphere is reconstructed, with a resolution that exceeds the limit of one half a wavelength provided by the traditional IFT of the far-field.

Publication: 28th ESA Antenna Workshop on Space Antenna Systems and Technologies Digest
Place: ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands, 31 May-03 June 2005