This thesis presents a practical approach to reduce the overall testing time in a spherical near-field (SNF) antenna measurement environment. The premise of this work is that the acquisition time is mostly dominated by the mechanical movement and the processing electronic. Moreover, it is assumed that the transformation time to go from the near-field domain to the far-field domain (NF-FF transform) is small compared to the acquisition time. Thus this operation can be done repeatedly while the acquisition is on-going without significantly affecting the overall test time. This situation allows to continuously evaluate the far-field (FF) of the antenna under test (AUT), so that certain decision functions based on the radiation pattern of the antenna can be monitored. Such decision functions are based on the antenna specification, such as the gain, the side lobe level, etc. We do not proceed with a complete scan of the measurement sphere but effectively allow the probe to follow a directed path under control of an acquisition rule, so that the sampled near-field (NF) datapoints constitute an acquisition map on the sphere. The acquisition can then be terminated based on decision function values, allowing the smallest amount of data needed to ensure accurate determination of the AUT performance measures.

This thesis presents a practical approach to reduce the overall testing time in a spherical near-field (SNF) antenna measurement environment. The premise of this work is that the acquisition time is mostly dominated by the mechanical movement and the processing electronic. Moreover, it is assumed that the transformation time to go from the near-field domain to the far-field domain (NF-FF transform) is small compared to the acquisition time. Thus this operation can be done repeatedly while the acquisition is on-going without significantly affecting the overall test time. This situation allows to continuously evaluate the far-field (FF) of the antenna under test (AUT), so that certain decision functions based on the radiation pattern of the antenna can be monitored. Such decision functions are based on the antenna specification, such as the gain, the side lobe level, etc. We do not proceed with a complete scan of the measurement sphere but effectively allow the probe to follow a directed path under control of an acquisition rule, so that the sampled near-field (NF) datapoints constitute an acquisition map on the sphere. The acquisition can then be terminated based on decision function values, allowing the smallest amount of data needed to ensure accurate determination of the AUT performance measures.

El objetivo del diagnóstico de antenas es la detección de errores en antena fabricadas. Dado que este diagnóstico es difícil de realizar simplemente observando medidas de campo, el diagnóstico se realiza usando las corrientes equivalentes reconstruidas en una superficie próxima a la antena. Esta tesis describe las diferentes posibilidades de realizar esta reconstrucción en una superficie plana a partir de medidas esféricas en campo próximo. En concreto, se estudian extensivamente, y se aplican a situaciones reales, las técnicas de la expansión modal. El problema principal de las técnicas modales es la limitación en la resolución de las corrientes equivalentes. La razón de esta limitación es la pequeña región disponible del espectro de ondas planas (cuya transformada de Fourier son las corrientes equivalentes). En esta tesis se estudia este problema, se muestran varios ejemplos y se describen las posibilidades de mejorar la resolución. De entre estas posibilidades, se propone el uso de una técnica de extrapolación con la que estimar el espectro no visible a partir de la región conocida (el espectro visible) y de información adicional sobre la antena como, por ejemplo, el tamaño de la antena. Entre las diferentes técnicas de extrapolación, se describen y comparan las técnicas más usadas comúnmente. En primer lugar, se aplica el algoritmo iterativo de Papoulis-Gerchberg usando el tamaño y la forma de la antena. Después se describen las versiones directas de este algoritmo, es decir la matriz de extrapolación por filas y columnas y la matriz de extrapolación generalizada. Finalmente, se estudia la transformación PDFT y se compara con los algoritmos anteriores. Todas estas técnicas son aplicadas en situaciones reales con una importante mejora en la resolución. El último capítulo de esta tesis trata de los procedimientos de calibración de sonda. Estos procedimientos son especialmente importantes en el diagnóstico de antenas. / Sánchez Escuderos, D. (2009). High-resolution algorithms for the reconstruction of the equivalent currents of an antenna by means of modal theory and a priori information [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/8323 / Palancia