Measurement technique for increasing the allowable dimensions of antennas tested in a collimator installation

Large collimator setups are often in use for antenna radiation pattern measurements. Their quiet zone size limiting the allowable dimensions of the antenna under test, as a rule, do not exceed a half of the collimator’s profile. Retrieving ARP from measurements in a non-ideal environment can be a means to expand the working area. The subject of the article is such a technique based on of the representation of a real field by a converging cluster of plane waves. It turned out that at the stage of studying the field of the collimator, despite the requirements of the uniqueness theorem, measurements may be carry out on a certain limited area of the boundary surface. Acceptable results are obtained when the working area is up to 90% of the collimator cross section.