The Journal of Engineering

IET International Radar Conference (IRC 2018)

Fast measurement method for received array eISSN 2051-3305

Received on 19th February 2019

antenna
Accepted on 02nd May 2019
E-First on 15th July 2019
doi: 10.1049/joe.2019.0245
www.ietdl.org

Liu Lingge1, Zhang Qitao2 , Chen Ye3

1LiuLingge Institute of Space Radio Technology of Xi'an, Xi'an, People's Republic of China
2Zhang Qitao Institute of Space Radio Technology of Xi'an, Xi'an, People's Republic of China
3Chen Ye Institute of Space Radio Technology of Xi'an, Xi'an, People's Republic of China

E-mail: zqt610@163.com

Abstract: The classic method of testing array antenna is measuring the beam pattern separately, which suffers from low
efficiency. In this study, a fast measurement method used for received array antenna has been present. Firstly, the patterns of
element antennas have been tested using multi-channel receiver. Then the entire pattern could be computed by weighting the
information of elements. The information contains amplitude and phase, which could be obtained by theory or measurement.

1 Introduction
Compared with single antenna, array antenna is more powerful. Its
flexible array setting allows controllable relation for amplitude and
phase. It also realises beam pattern scanning or resists disturbing
signal from specific direction. Array antenna has wide application
in radar and wireless communication. The variety of beams is the
point of array antenna. However, the measurement used to realise
by testing hundreds of beam patterns separately, which requires
lots of time. In this letter, a new method for fast measuring has
been put forward. The element patterns are acquired by fast
scanning and computed entire pattern after weighting. Therefore, it
is an effective way for array antenna measurement.
2 Classic measurement method
The classic measurement method of array antenna requires testing
the beam pattern, respectively. After the integration of antenna
array and network, the weighted method is employed for amplitude
and phase to generate required beams. Then every beam is
measured, respectively, for the final result of array antenna. Planar
near-field is always employed during the measurement. The signal
from signal source is divided into two directions, the output one for
test channel and the coupling one to the reference channel. More
specifically, the output signal flowed to the probe is received by the
antenna under test (AUT) and then the two-channel receiver as
well. Meanwhile, the coupling signal flows straightly to the
receiver as the phase reference [1]. After scanning the beam in near
field, its far-field distribution could be obtained by fast Fourier
transform. The rest beams are generated by changing the weight of
amplitude and phase. Repeating the test procedure for the rest and
the final pattern could be formed. Fig. 1 illustrates the diagram of
the classic measurement method.
3 Array antenna fast measurement method
3.1 Link configuration
Multichannel receiver is employed for element patterns. Combined
with theoretical or measured weight, the entire array pattern could
be obtained. It allows dozens of patterns measuring at the same
time, which greatly raises the test efficiency. Fig. 2 describes the
diagram of the fast measurement method.
In planar near-field measurement system, the signal is
transmitted from probe while scanning. Also the near-field
property of each element could be received by multi-channel
receiver.

3.2 Channel calibration

Fig. 1 Diagram of classic measurement
For the accuracy of element patterns, different channels and cables
need to be normalised before the measurement. Channel calibration
is to correct the error among different channels. In this work,
wireless calibration is employed instead of cable calibration.
As shown in Fig. 3, array element 1 is selected for channel
calibration. Firstly, it is connected to channel 1 with cable 1. Its
near-field properties are recorded as am1 for amplitude and ph1 for
phase. Secondly, the same element 1 is connected to channel 2 with
cable 2, its near-field properties are recorded as am2 and ph2.
Finally, amn and phn refer to the properties connecting to channel n
with cable n. During the calibration, the transmitting probe locates
at the same position.
Expression (1) and (2) refer to the differences among channels
on amplitude and phase separately.
Fig. 2 Diagram of the fast measurement method

J. Eng., 2019, Vol. 2019 Iss. 19, pp. 5944-5947 5944

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Δamm = am1 − amm (1)

Δphm = ph1 − phm

(2)
m = 1, 2......n

In expression (3) and (4), amm and phm refer to the properties of
channel m. Also the calibration result is recorded as amm-cal and
phm−cal

amm − cal = amm + Δamm (3)

phm − cal = phm + Δphm

(4)
m = 1, 2......n

3.3 Weight of measurement method Fig. 3 Diagram of channel calibration

Theoretical or measured weighting method is employed for
calculating the entire pattern. Measured weighting is measuring the
beam forming network directly using vector network analysis
(VNA), like Fig. 4.
After two-port calibration of VNA, the RF signal from port 1
goes to channel 1 of beam-forming network and output back to port
2. At the same time, other channels are connected with loads.
Under different weighting, the attenuation and phase shift of
channel 1 are recorded. Repeating the procedure for different
channels, all attenuation and phase shift are recorded for
computing the entire pattern.

3.4 Computing the entire pattern

Near-field distributions of elements are obtained in Section 3.1
while channel calibration is adopted in Section 3.2. After
measuring the weighting of beam pattern in Section 3.3, the entire
pattern of array antenna in far field could be computed based on
plane wave spectrum (PWS) theory and pattern multiplication.
Channel calibration is operated firstly using expression (5)–(7).
Fig. 4 Diagram of measuring weight of the network
amm − cal(x, y, d) = amm(x, y, d) + Δamm (5)

phm − cal(x, y, d) = phm(x, y, d) + Δphm (6)

amm − cal(x, y, d)
Em − bal(x, y, d) = 10 20 × e j ⋅ phm − cal(x, y, d) × π /180 (7)

amm(x, y, d) – the amplitude of channel m at position (x, y, d)

phm(x, y, d) – the phase of channel m at position (x, y, d)
amm − cal(x, y, d) – the amplitude after calibration of channel m at
position (x, y, d)
phm − cal(x, y, d) – the phase after calibration of channel m at
position (x, y, d)
Em − bal(x, y, d) – the electric field strength of channel m at
position (x, y, d)
Based on PWS theory [2],

f em(θ, φ) = ∫∫ E m − bal(x, y, d)dxdy (8)

Fig. 5 The status of the AUT and measurement system

f em(θ, φ) – far-field pattern of element m According to the method of Section 3.2, firstly the probe is
where Wm refers to the weight of element m, expression (9) is to moved to more than one position to get average value during the
compute far-field pattern by pattern multiplication [3] measurement, which improves the accuracy of channel calibration.
Fig. 6 describes the results of calibration. The properties of
F(θ, φ) = ∑ Wm f em(θ, φ) amplitude and phase are different between curves, which refers to
(9) different channels.
n
Fig. 7 illustrates the difference between theoretical weight and
F(θ, φ) – far-field pattern after computing measured weight as mentioned in Section 3.3. Beam 1 is selected
as an example; red solid line illustrates the theoretical weight
whereas blue dot line refers to the measured weight. It is clear to
4 Measurement illustration see that under small attenuation, there are 1 dB difference on
For a 32-elements array antenna, both the classic method and the amplitude and 10 degree difference on phase shift.
fast measurement method are employed for comparison. Fig. 5
shows the status of measurement.

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Fig. 6 Result of the channel balance of the multi-channel receiver
(a) Multi-channel amplitude balance, (b) Multi-channel phase balance
Five different weights are taken for the comparison. They are
optimised for service zone by general reflector antenna software
package (GRASP), which is not detailed discussed in this paper.
Based on Section 3.4 the entire pattern is computed. Fig. 8a
describes 32 elements patterns while Fig. 8b shows entire patterns
based on different methods. More specifically, the red solid line
illustrates the theoretical weighted method. While the black dot
line refers to the classic measurement method, in which beam
patterns are tested separately and formed by the network. The blue
dash line refers to the new method mentioned in this letter, which
measured the element patterns at first.
It is clear to see that the blue dash line matches well with black
dot line, which illustrates the method mentioned in this paper is
accurate for array-antenna measurement. Whereas the results of
network (black dot line) and measurement weight (blue solid line)
show errors from that of theoretical weight (red solid line). The
inconformity is detailed explained in Section 5.2.
5 Comparison with classical method
5.1 Efficiency
Classic method only allows one beam measuring at one time.
Table 1 shows the comparison of the time cost between the classic
method and these letters. Obviously the method in this letter is
much more efficiency, especially with the increasing of the beam
number.
5.2 Fast adjustment on weighted and error analysis
For the error between theoretical result and measured one, it allows
to analysis the error. More specifically, the updating theory pattern
is computed by adding an error matrix (1 dB on amplitude and 10°
on phase) like Fig. 7 on theory weight. It is clear to see in Fig. 9
that the error between the updating theoretical pattern (black solid
line) and the theoretical one (red solid line) has the same
magnitude of the error between theoretical pattern (red solid line)
5946
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Fig. 7 Compare of the theory weight and the measurement weight
(a) Amplitude, (b) Phase
and measured pattern (blue dot line). It explains the inconformity
mentioned in Section 4.
5.3 High dynamic range
Migl et al [4] adopted switch matrix in array-antenna measurement
which influences the system dynamic range during measurement.
Fig. 10 shows the link configuration with switch matrix.
Keysight switch 85332B shown in Fig. 11 is selected as an
example. The switch matrix is realised by the cascade of switches
for more than four channels. The insert loss of Keysight switch
85332B is 12 dB at 26.5 GHz. Also 32 channels require three-order
cascades which would bring at least 36 dB loss on dynamic range.
The comparison among different methods is shown in Table 2.
5.4 Application
In addition, the new method also fits the requirement of measuring
received digital beam forming (DBF) antenna. It has the same link
configuration with Fig. 2, where all the digital weighting operates
after the multi-channel receiver collecting the data of element
patterns.
6 Conclusion
A fast measurement method for received array antenna is present in
this study. It matches well with the classic measurement method
and greatly increases measuring efficiency.
7 Acknowledgments
The authors thank our colleagues from Institute of Space Radio
Technology of Xi'an for their support. We would like to
acknowledge engineer Zhao Bing, Zhang Jianguo, Deng Jiangtao
and Cui Lei for their helpful discussion, and express appreciation
to Liu Changwei for his assistance.
J. Eng., 2019, Vol. 2019 Iss. 19, pp. 5944-5947
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Fig. 9 Error on computed pattern

Fig. 10 Link configuration of the pin switch

Fig. 11 Keysight 85332B PIN switch

Fig. 8 Pattern results
(a) Element patterns, (b) Entire patterns with different methods
Table 2 Loss on dynamic range among different methods
Measurement method Classic Switch Multi-channel
Table 1 Efficiency comparison between classic method and
the fast method loss on dynamic range 0 dB 36 dB 0 dB
Measurement No. of Time of Time of Total
method beam measuring measuring time,
AUT, hours network, hours 8 References
hours [1] IEEE Standards Association ‘IEEE recommended practice for near-field
classic 5 10 0 10 antenna measurements’ 2012
[2] Naihong, M., Weisheng, G., Xinde, J.: ‘Antenna measurement’ (Xidian
fast 5 2 0.5 2.5 University Press, China, 1983), pp. 229–238
classic 100 200 0 200 [3] Wenyuan, W., Deming, G., Bisehn, C.: ‘Antenna theory’ (Xidian University
Press, China, 1990), pp. 61–114
fast 100 2 10 12 [4] Migl, J., Guelten, E., Seitz, W.: ‘Time efficient antenna & payload
measurement technique for future multi-spot-beam antennas’. 7th European
Conf. on Antennas and Propagation (EUCAP 2013) – Convened Sessions,
Gothenburg, Sweden, 2013, pp. 1373–1377

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