Development of Software/Hardware platform For Wideband Antenna Measurement

In this paper, simple, low cost, and convenient automatic antenna measurement system is proposed to obtain the antenna measuring parameters such as, radiation pattern, gain, Half Power Beam Width (HPBW) and maximum power for RF/microwaves antennas and antenna arrays within the frequency range of 700MHz to 20 GHz. The system consists of nema-23 stepper motor, Arduino, and R&S ZVB20 Vector Network Analyzer (VNA). All the necessary hardware is synchronously controlled by LabVIEW. The stepper motor moves with the increment of 1.8 degree and cover 360-degree rotation using LabVIEW software and Arduino control system. The receiving AUT is connected to VNA and the VNA is linked to LabVIEW via GPIB interface. The VNA measures the power received by AUT after each rotation step and real time radiation pattern is plotted on the GUI of LabVIEW. The measured results of proposed system are in good agreement with the expected results. This portable system can be used in both commercial and education sector.