Design of Dual Polarised Wide Band Plane Wave Generator for Direct Far-Field Testing

The Plane Wave Generator (PWG) is intended to generate a local plane wave in its close proximity. It consists of an array of elements with optimized complex excitation and disposed on a suitable lattice. The PWG achieves far-field testing condition in a spherical Quiet Zone (QZ) where the antenna under test (AUT) can be directly measured. The testing method is similar to a Compact Antenna Test Range (CATR), but a considerably smaller space is required. Early PWG designs have been limited to narrow-band and single polarization. In this paper we present the design and measured performance of a dual-polarized PWG with 10:1 bandwidth. The prototype has been tested in the 0.6-6 GHz frequency range. In the following, we show the initial testing results on the QZ uniformity and an initial evaluation of the achievable measurement accuracy.