Practical revision of near-field to far-field zone transition of real antennas

The authors propose a technique to represent the real antenna by two sets of equivalent current density representing the forward and backward radiation of the antenna. The equivalent currents are obtained from a near-field measurement of the antenna under test and with the use of a source reconstruction method. Once the equivalent sources representing the antenna are determined, the electric and magnetic field patterns can be straightforwardly calculated and represented. Applications such as the practical determination of near-field to far-field transition zone of real antennas, the determination of safety regions around radiating systems according with the limiting electromagnetic exposure regulations that have been recently approved in many countries affecting radio stations in general and cellular base station antennas in particular, and some other educational applications have been considered.