Mid-field OTA RF test method: new developments and performance comparison with the compact antenna test range (CATR)

Kong, Hongwei; Ya, Jing; Wen, Zhu; Cao, Li Hui

doi:10.23919/eucap48036.2020.9135921

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 2 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Another way to measure the phasedarray antenna in a short distance is proposed in [15] and [51]. In this method, the midfield is defined as the range where the probe antenna is in the FF of the individual antenna element but the NF of the phased-array antenna module.…”

Section: Midfield Measurement Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrated-Antenna Over-the-Air Testing for Millimeter-Wave Applications: An Overview of Systems and Uncertainty [Measurements Corner]

Barani¹,

Bronckers

Reniers

2022

IEEE Antennas Propag. Mag.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: Midfield Measurement Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrated-Antenna Over-the-Air Testing for Millimeter-Wave Applications: An Overview of Systems and Uncertainty [Measurements Corner]

Barani¹,

Bronckers

Reniers

2022

IEEE Antennas Propag. Mag.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…To overcome above test challenges a Middle-field (MF) test method is proposed with asymptotic expansion transform, and prototype test systems are developed in [39][40][41] to achieve OTA RF measurement with compact size. The MF testing method can reduce the test distance to 1/8 of the Fraunhofer distance, and the MF transformation proposed for this method is significantly less complex than the traditional NFTF.…”

Section: Mid-field Solutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Its far-field Figure 1.9: Concept and implementation of MF approach (Fig. 2 in [41]). distance 16.35m, and the corresponding MF distance is about 2.2m.…”

Section: Mf System and Validation Testmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Over-the-air testing metrology of 5G radios

2021

Metrology for 5G and Emerging Wireless Technologies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

5G new radio (NR) (i.e. the global 5G standard) is introduced to significantly improve wireless system performance in terms of spectral efficiency, coverage, datarate, latency, number of connected devices and energy efficiency. As 5G matures, now is the time for its large-scale deployments and commercialization. Several key radio technologies have been introduced to enable the 5G NR, e.g., high operating frequency (e.g, millimeter-wave (mm-wave) frequency), wider system bandwidth as compared with 4G, large-scale antenna configuration, and integrated radio frequency (RF) front-end design. Thorough testing of 5G NR radios is essential before their massive roll-out. Testing is required in the stage of device troubleshooting, regression, validation and performance evaluation. However, these NR technology advances have posed significant challenges on testing methods. Test complexity has significantly increased due to higher operating frequencies, wider system bandwidth, increased minimum number of test cases, increased overall test time, electrically larger antenna under test (AUT) and necessity of over-the-air (OTA) testing.Traditional cable conducted testing is getting problematic due to complexity introduced in advances RF and antenna technologies. Components of radio devices, including the modem, RF circuits and antennas were individually designed and separately tested in the traditional conducted test setup. However, integrated RF front-end design is expected in the 5G NR due to cost, size and design consideration. If RF coaxial cables and connectors, which are not part of the final wireless product, are employed during the testing, they introduce losses and mis-matches and may also intrusively affect the radiation pattern profile of the wireless product under test. Antenna ports, if accessible, become massively bulky due to large-scale antenna array configuration, which makes traditional cable conducted testing complicated, expensive and error-prone. Furthermore, many benefits of 5G NR systems are introduced by the spatial discrimination capability of their employed antenna arrays (e.g. beam-

show abstract

“…However, the setup cost is rather expensive for massive deployment. In [14,15], a midfield (MF) method is proposed and validated to achieve OTA RF measurement, including AUT FF antenna patterns, transmit and receive performance metrics. The method presents some unique advantages.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Single-cut Far-Field Antenna Radiation Pattern Reconstruction Accuracy Analysis in Compact Anechoic Chamber Setup

Jensen¹,

Ji²,

Zhang³

et al. 2021

ACES

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In production testing, it is of importance to measure the key radiation parameters of an antenna under test (AUT), e.g., main beam peak and direction, sidelobes, and null depth and direction in a cost-effective setup with a short measurement time. As a result, practical measurement setups are often compact and equipped with only a few probes (or probe locations). However, these system limitations would introduce errors for antenna testing. This problem has become even more pronounced for 5G radios due to utilization of large-scale antenna configurations and high frequency bands. Spherical near-field measurements are nowadays an accurate and mature technique for characterizing AUTs, which however, necessitates a full spherical acquisition, leading to a long measurement time. Singlecut near-to-far-field transformation is a promising strategy since most of the key AUT parameters are available in the single-cut pattern and it requires much reduced measurement time. In this work, a simple and flexible scheme is proposed to evaluate errors introduced by limitations in practical setups for single-cut far-field (FF) antenna radiation pattern reconstruction, where the near-field data can be easily generated and modified according to the limitations introduced in practical multiprobe anechoic chamber setups, e.g., measurement distance, truncation range, and sampling interval. The reconstructed FF pattern is obtained using a commercial near-field to far-field transformation tool, SNIFT. The proposed scheme is numerically validated via comparing the reference FF pattern of a 4 × 8 uniform planar array composed of ideal Hertzian dipoles and reconstructed FF pattern. With the proposed scheme, the impact of practical system limitations on single-cut reconstruction accuracy can be easily analyzed.Index Terms ─ Antenna pattern measurement, nearfield far-field transformation, near field measurement, over-the-air testing, and single-cut antenna pattern.

show abstract

Mid-field OTA RF test method: new developments and performance comparison with the compact antenna test range (CATR)

Cited by 6 publications

References 2 publications

Integrated-Antenna Over-the-Air Testing for Millimeter-Wave Applications: An Overview of Systems and Uncertainty [Measurements Corner]

Integrated-Antenna Over-the-Air Testing for Millimeter-Wave Applications: An Overview of Systems and Uncertainty [Measurements Corner]

Over-the-air testing metrology of 5G radios

Single-cut Far-Field Antenna Radiation Pattern Reconstruction Accuracy Analysis in Compact Anechoic Chamber Setup

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About