Rapidly Deployable Portable System for Real-Time Antenna Diagnostics and Characterization

In this paper a portable system, based on off-the-shelf components, to perform in-situ fast antenna diagnostics and characterization is presented. In order to perform the antenna evaluation, the operator holds a probe antenna, which is moved in front of the antenna under test (AUT) to acquire the near-field (NF) on an arbitrary surface. During the NF acquisition, an equivalent currents distribution on the aperture of the AUT is continuously reconstructed based on the available samples. Moreover, the far-field (FF) radiation pattern is also computed. In addition to the probe, the system comprises a commercial real-time position tracking system capable of providing the Cartesian coordinates and the rotation angles of the probe, which can be deployed and calibrated in a few minutes. The NF acquisition is accomplished by means of a vector network analyzer (VNA). The obtained results of a test characterizing a horn antenna are discussed, showing good performance.