Design and measurements of 6 x 6 m collimator reflector with rounded edges

Abstract

Compact antenna test range (CATR) is designed to form a plane wave at a small distance from the aperture of the collimator reflector, which allows measurements to be made under far field conditions in a compact anechoic chamber. Currently, collimators are in demand due to the technical re-equipment of the industry for the production of 4G, 5G and Internet of Things stuff. The typical size of a quiet zone for these needs is 1–1.5 m. Along with antenna pattern measurements, collimators are widely used for RCS measurements. In the latter case, the measured objects may have dimensions several times larger than the average size of the quiet zone. Manufacturing, installation and adjustment of collimator reflector of several meters in size is a non-trivial task that requires separate study for each project. An incorrect choice of the reflector geometry can lead to an increase in mass and size, which entails an increase in production costs and the anechoic chamber designed for the CATR. In addition, increase in mass imposes additional requirements on the rigidity of the rack to which the reflector is attached, and the foundation under the collimator. As a rule, large-sized reflectors consist of a dozen fragments, which leads to the need to have special adjustment mechanisms for precision tuning of the reflector fragments. These and other problems need to be solved when developing large CATR. The article presents the issues faced by the LLC «RadioLine» in the process of manufacturing and setting up a collimator stand with a 6 x 6 m reflector. The issues of choosing the geometry of the reflector, its focal length have been highlighted. It has been shown how the agreement of the results of three-dimensional modeling of the reflector and production capabilities has been carried out. The features of the design of the reflector rack are touched upon, in particular, the appropriateness of using two materials: one for the base, and the second for the truss, which is connected to the reflector. After discussing the design features, a scheme for measuring the electromagnetic field distribution in a quiet zone, approaches to improving the quality of the RF characteristics of the CATR have been presented. It is noted that in the process of setting up the collimator, in order to determine the directions to the sources of diffraction, it is useful to apply the recalculation of the measured electromagnetic field in the quiet zone into the plane wave spectrum. At the end of the article, quiet zone cuts have been shown at frequencies of 0.75 GHz, 8.2 GHz and 50 GHz. Average peak-to-peak ripple of the amplitude-phase distribution in the operating frequency range of the CATR is 1 dB in amplitude and 10 degrees in phase.