New procedure for near-field measurements of microwave antennas without anechoic environments

A new approach to the problem of environmental effects in microwave antenna pattern measurements is proposed. The method exploits the ability of a scanning probe to synthesise a high-quality, spatially selective wavefront which effectively avoids the illumination of unwanted scatterers. The development of a specialised planar array function is described, and the wavefront produced is demonstrated to be of high quality over the region of interest. An algorithm is presented to enable the procedure to be used for near-field/far-field transformation, and experimental results are provided as validation of the process.