The main goal of this contribution is to analyze the performance of an Unmanned Aerial System for Antenna Measurement (UASAM). UASAM can be used for performing antenna diagnostics and characterization at the antenna operational location. The proposed system measures the power transmitted by the Antenna Under Test (AUT) in the near field region. These measurements are post-processed to perform antenna diagnostics and to retrieve the far field pattern. Due to the lack of phase data, a phase retrieval technique called phaseless Sources Reconstruction Method (pSRM) is used to obtain the aperture fields. In this contribution, the effect of acquisition grid truncation in the aperture field reconstruction quality and in the far field patterns is studied. Three different grids have been considered: cylindrical and arc cylindrical surfaces, and planar surfaces parallel to the AUT aperture. It has been found that using planar acquisition grids the quality of the antenna diagnostics slightly improves and the flight times are shortened (compared to cylindrical acquisitions). Index Terms-antenna measurement, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), phaseless Sources Reconstruction Method (SRM), Near-Field to Far-Field transformation (NF-FF).
The main goal of this contribution is to provide an overview of an Unmanned Aerial System for Antenna Measurement (UASAM), which will be presented at the AMTA Scientific Workshop on "UAV-based Antenna and Field Measurements". UASAM is a compact low-cost system that can be used for in-situ antenna measurement and diagnostics. It makes use of a Real Time Kinematik (RTK) and a laser altimeter to georefer the measurements with cm-level accuracy. Field radiated by the Antenna Under Test (AUT) is measured with a low-cost power detector at several acquisition surfaces (even non-canonical surfaces) around the AUT (in the near field region). Next, an iterative phase retrieval technique is applied, being able to recover the AUT aperture fields. Furthermore, from these fields, Near-Field to Far-Field (NF-FF) transformation can be used to retrieve the radiation pattern. Several application examples for different kinds of AUTs will be shown in the workshop. In addition, the impact of positioning and geo-referring accuracy will be discussed as well. This system is of great interest for those industrial applications where antenna diagnostics and radiation pattern assessment capabilities are required (e.g. analysis of antenna arrays, tilt testing of base station antennas, etc.) avoiding the need of stopping operational conditions.
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