Radiation pattern evaluation from near-field intensities on planes

Abstract

This paper describes, analyzes, and implements an approach to far-field determination from phaseless measurements over two planar surfaces. A proper formulation of the problem is considered as a quadratic inverse one whose data is the square amplitude of the near field. A solution is introduced as the global minimum of an appropriate functional. Next, to perform such a minimization procedure, a finite dimensional representation of the field radiated by sources whose plane-wave spectrum becomes negligible outside a fixed angular domain is used. A detailed investigation of the properties of the mapping connecting the unknowns to the data makes it possible to analyze how to escape from the local minima possibly met in the course of the minimization procedure. To this end, the crucial role of the availability of phaseless data over two different sarfa,ces and of appropriate weights in the functional definition is emphasized, and a reliable iterative procedure converging on the solution, regardless of the starting point, is thus obtained. This property is confirmed by experimental results concerning near-zone data from a shaped reflector at 9 Ghz. It can be readily appreciated that when only the field intensity is detected the complexity and the cost of the equipment required for near-field techniques in antenna testing and diagnostics can be reduced to a very large extent.