Phaseless Characterization of Broadband Antennas

Abstract

A new efficient method for broadband antenna characterization from phaseless acquisitions in the frequency-domain (FD) is presented. The phase-retrieval technique is based on an extrapolation of the off-axis indirect holography. In common with the conventional approach, the power of the interferometric field of the antenna under test (AUT) and a reference antenna, whose field is known in advance, as well as the power of the AUT alone, is measured at the desired frequencies. Nevertheless, the phase retrieval is accomplished independently at each spatial point by filtering in the time-domain (TD) rather than in the k -space. Thus, the dependency of the phase retrieval on the position accuracy is reduced and it can be accomplished simultaneously at all frequencies without resorting to iterative schemes. Moreover, it yields a less dense sampling and a phase-retrieval algorithm not dependent on the geometry of the acquisition. The method is illustrated with a numerical example in the $W$ -band as well as with two near-field (NF) measurement examples in the $K_a$ - and $W$ -bands.