Fast Radome Antenna Testing using Single-Cut and Slide Measurements

Abstract

Cylindrical near-field measurements are suitable for Base Station (BTS) antennas testing due to their fanned-beam radiation patterns. BTS often incorporate large radomes that need to be tested as well to ensure they don't distort the antenna pattern or the reflection coefficient. This increases measurement time because the complete antenna becomes electrically larger. This paper presents a technique to minimize BTS radome testing. The technique is based on measuring the antenna near-field over a ring and a vertical slide to compute the one dimensional versions of the cylindrical and plane wave expansions, for the horizontal and vertical planes, respectively. We show how such reduced expansions can be used to retrieve the far-field pattern on the main planes E and H, as well as its gain. We report measurements with real BTS and radomes reducing the testing times from several hours to minutes.