A stable higher-order probe correction algorithm for spherical near field antenna measurements

Abstract

ABSTRACT A novel higher-order probe correction algorithm is introduced for the spherical near field antenna measurements. The measured signal is processed by the fast Fourier transform along direction and integrated numerically along direction, thus converting the transmission formula into a series of small matrix equations. In a virtual example simulated using FEKO, a Yagi antenna is used as a higher-order probe to measure a Taylor array. It is shown that the proposed method is faster, more accurate and more stable than the FFT/matrix inverse method. Furthermore, the number of sampling points of the former is only half of that of the latter.