The bi-polar planar near-field measurement technique, part I: implementation and measurement comparisons

A novel customized bi-polar planar near-field antenna measurement technique is presented as an alternative to the plane-rectangular and plane-polar measurement techniques. The bi-polar near-field scanner incorporates an axially rotating test antenna and a rotating probe-carrying arm to sample the near-field on a data grid consisting of concentric circles and radial arcs. This technique offers a large scan plane size with reduced “real estate” requirements and a simple mechanical implementation resulting in a highly accurate and cost-effective antenna measurement and diagnostic system. Part I of this two-part paper gives an introduction to the bi-polar near-field technique and a description of the unique hardware implementation at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Measured results are compared with those produced by a far-field range and a plane-rectangular planar near-field range to verify the implementation and validate the method. Excellent agreement was obtained for both the co-polarized and cross-polarized fields