Mathematic subarray decomposition to compose the radiation of electrically large phased array of antennas with limited excitation power in measurement

This paper presents a strategy to measure the radiation from an electrically large phased array of antennas with high-power excitations. The motivation arises from the insufficient power supply and safety requirement in the measurement system. We propose the decomposition of the original array into mathematically overlapped arrays each with locally emphasized excitations to fulfill the safety requirement of radiation inside a chamber. The radiations of these decomposed arrays may also serve as the field basis functions to calibrate the radiation patterns of the original array with sufficiently reduced time. Both numerical simulations and experimental measurements are shown to demonstrate the validity.