3-D Antenna Radiation Pattern Reconstruction in a Reverberation Chamber Using Spherical Wave Decomposition

Abstract

It has been shown that the correlation between the radiation patterns of two antennas can be measured in a reverberation chamber (RC). In this paper, it is shown that the self-correlation coefficient of an antenna, defined as the correlation between the radiation pattern of an antenna under test (AUT) and a transformed version of itself, can also be measured in an RC. It is found that the 3-D radiation pattern of the AUT can be reconstructed from the measured self-correlation coefficient by using spherical wave decomposition. Moreover, the axial ratio of the AUT can also be measured efficiently in the RC, when the pattern is directional. Numerical simulations and measurements in the RC and in an anechoic chamber have been undertaken. Good agreement is obtained, which confirms the validity of the proposed method. Thus, this novel method can become a very useful, cost-effective, and efficient method for 3-D antenna radiation pattern measurement.