Antenna pattern comparison between an outdoor cylindrical near-field test facility and an indoor spherical near-field antenna test facility

A new spherical near-field probe-positioning device has been designed and constructed, consisting of a large 5.0 meter fixed arc. This arc has been installed in a near-field test facility, located at Alenia Marconi Systems, on the Isle of Wight, UK. As part of the near-field qualification, testing was performed on a ground-based radar antenna. The resultant patterns were compared against measurements collected on the same antenna on a large outdoor cylindrical near-field test facility, also located on the Isle of Wight [F. Steiner et al., Jan. 1994]. These measurements included multiple-frequency measurements and multiple pattern comparisons. This paper summarizes the results obtained as part of the measurement program, and includes discussions on the error budgets for the two ranges, along with a discussion of the mutual error budget between the two ranges.