Generation of Radiation Patterns Equivalent to In-Flight Measurements

Comparison of in-situ measured antenna radiation patterns (RPs) to modeled ones is vital for validation of both. In-flight measured RPs do not always produce a standard conic or elevation cut (constant θ or φ angle, respectively), but rather Great Circle (GC) cuts at the aircraft bank angle of interest. WIPL-D's post-processing routines, on the other hand, do not produce GC cuts in normal setups. A manipulation of the aircraft orientation in xyz-coordinates is required to accomplish this task. Under standard conditions in WIPL-D, the fuselage is positioned parallel to the x-axis and the wings parallel to the y-axis. A model rotation of 90° with respect to the y-axis allows for the generation of GC cuts, where θ and φ swap roles. This makes comparison between in-flight measurements and computed data cumbersome. This paper investigates several options to produce non-standard RPs in WIPL-D and MATLAB (using WIPL-D results) that are equivalent to those of in-flight measurements.