Measurement technology for electrically small antennas

A measurement technique and apparatus for electrically small antennas employing miniature photonically powered radio-frequency over fibre links to ensure minimum electrical footprint of the measurement device. The challenge to achieve accurate measurements of electrically small antennas for communications bands up to 6 GHz is demonstrated along with the ease of obtaining erroneous results for the impedance and resonant frequency when using traditional methods. In this paper we detail this low perturbation method of complex impedance measurement for which full calibration of the measurement device can be achieved.