Accurate determination of radiation patterns from near-field measurements in highly reflective environments

The radiation pattern of an antenna under test is determined from measurements in a highly reflective, fully metallic measurement environment similar to a reverberation chamber. The undesired influence of the reflecting walls is eliminated by processing the data obtained for a large number of frequencies and different probe locations in the chamber. The post-processing concept effectively combines temporal and spatial filtering of the measured signals in an innovative field synthesis concept. S-Band measurements show the effectiveness of the proposed processing concepts. The accuracy is comparable to anechoic measurements, however, for the cost of increased measurement and post-processing effort.