Antenna Measurement Facility Comparisons within the ACE First Facility Comparison Campaign

Personnel

Period

2004 - 2005   

Funding  

EU Network of Excellence – Antenna Centre of Excellence, ACE  

Description 

The purpose of the First Facility Comparison Campaign is to conduct measurements of the same reference antenna, the DTU-ESA Validation Standard Antenna, in a large number of antenna measurement facilities, and to perform comparisons of the obtained measurements. This serves the primary objective of obtaining experience and results that can lead to the development of standards for validation of antenna measurement facilities. The secondary objective is to provide the participating facilities with an opportunity to compare its performance and capabilities relative to those of other facilities.

The reference antenna used in the campaign is the 12 GHz DTU-ESA Validation Standard Antenna (VAST-12). This antenna is a linearly polarized offset shaped reflector with a circular aperture fed by a conical corrugated horn. It has been specially designed for use as a reference antenna in facility comparisons, and is thus excellently suited for use in this campaign.

Measurements have been completed in 8 facilities during the course of the campaign. These facilities consist of spherical near-field facilities, compact ranges, a planar near-field facility, and a far-field facility. The current list of participants from which measurement data has been included in the comparisons are:

• Technical University of Denmark
  • Spherical Near-Field Facility
• Technical University of Madrid
  • Spherical Near-Field Facility
  • Planar Near-Field Facility
  • Compact Range
• Saab Ericsson Space
  • Spherical Near-Field Facility
• France Telecom R&D
  • Far-Field Facility
• Ericsson Microwave Systems
  • Compact Range
• Technical University of Catalonia
  • Spherical Near-Field Facility

Comparisons of the measured radiation patterns can be done in a number of ways. Traditionally comparisons of patterns obtained at 2 different facilities have been done by presenting the patterns in one figure, and subsequently performing qualitative comparisons through visual inspections. In order to achieve a quantitative measure of the similarity of the measurements, various definitions of differences between the patterns, and measures of merit that can be calculated form these differences, are examined in this project. Examples of such differences can be observed in the below figure where two radiation patterns which were measured during the campaign are compared.

Here two radiation patterns measured at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) are compared. The top left figure shows the two radiation patterns, the top right figure shows the difference between the patters when calculated on a logarithmic scale, and the lower figure shows the difference when weighted with a particular weighting function.

Publications 

[1] O. Breinbjerg, S. Pivnenko, M. S. Castañer, C. Sabatier, “Antenna Measurement Facility Comparison Campaign within the European Antenna Centre of Excellence”, Proceedings of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation , Jul. 2005.

[2] J. E. Pallesen, , O. Breinbjerg, “EU Antenna Centre of Excellence WP 1.2-2: First Facility Comparison Campaign. Final Report”,   of , , Tech. Rep. R728, Jan. 2006.

[Back to Research projects]