Calibration method for small circular loop antennas using a standard loop antenna and vector network analyzer in low-frequency band

We propose a new calibration method for circular loop antennas. Generally, the standard field method is widely employed in loop antenna calibration, and a thermocouple is widely used as a current sensor on a transmitting loop antenna´s element to calculate the magnetic field strength at an antenna under calibration. Therefore, it has certain disadvantages such as low accuracy of measurement, a fragile structure, and so on. However, the proposed method has the characteristics of the standard field method and reference antenna method, and it is simpler than these methods. In this study, a comparisons are made in simulations and experiments. The results show that the proposed method is simple and efficient for calibrating loop antennas.